RMS addresses the free software community(fsf.org)
fsf.org
RMS addresses the free software community
https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community
530 comments
Neither of those things will happen.
We would be better off if we could remove those dishonest people from our communities here and elsewhere.
Dishonest reporting, and amplifying of dishonest posts on social media is not something you will ever get an apology for, because those efforts were never meant to survive scrutiny. They were meant to create "pressure" to cause reputational damage.
You cannot convince or engage bad-faith actors. All you can do is identify and eliminate them from your social media circles and sites as best you can.
This is one of the reasons I believe social media sites should enact age-based voting. Such that older accounts that have withstood the reputational scrutiny, have greater influence.
We would be better off if we could remove those dishonest people from our communities here and elsewhere.
Dishonest reporting, and amplifying of dishonest posts on social media is not something you will ever get an apology for, because those efforts were never meant to survive scrutiny. They were meant to create "pressure" to cause reputational damage.
You cannot convince or engage bad-faith actors. All you can do is identify and eliminate them from your social media circles and sites as best you can.
This is one of the reasons I believe social media sites should enact age-based voting. Such that older accounts that have withstood the reputational scrutiny, have greater influence.
> We would be better off if we could remove those dishonest people from our communities here and elsewhere.
You mean, only in some non-asshole way, so that we don't look exactly like them?
You mean, only in some non-asshole way, so that we don't look exactly like them?
> so that we don't look exactly like them?
How about not be like them at all? People are stupid, but they can learn from their mistakes, and society can help them by accepting an apology rather than shunning them forever.
How about not be like them at all? People are stupid, but they can learn from their mistakes, and society can help them by accepting an apology rather than shunning them forever.
What if they don't (want to) learn, and don't apologize (like these journalists and their companies likely won't). How often, and how long, do we hope for them to see the error in their ways, repent and become forces for good? And how much harm do we tolerate while we're waiting for them to see the light?
> We would be better off if we could remove those dishonest people from our communities here and elsewhere.
How do you distinguish between dishonesty and honesty? Who gets to determine that?
It sounds like you are attempting to block the people who blocked other people. It isn't a good cycle to get into.
Listening to arguments we disagree with is going to be incredibly valuable in the coming years. Not everyone is arguing bad-faith. There are some people who genuinely believe different things. Addressing those differences directly, through open discussion, will be much more productive than a procedure to "identify and eliminate".
How do you distinguish between dishonesty and honesty? Who gets to determine that?
It sounds like you are attempting to block the people who blocked other people. It isn't a good cycle to get into.
Listening to arguments we disagree with is going to be incredibly valuable in the coming years. Not everyone is arguing bad-faith. There are some people who genuinely believe different things. Addressing those differences directly, through open discussion, will be much more productive than a procedure to "identify and eliminate".
> How do you distinguish between dishonesty and honesty? Who gets to determine that?
There are two types of communities, in my opinion. ...and most, like HN, fall somewhere in the middle.
There's the community that's open to all, doesn't censor anything, and is flooded with low-quality or manipulated content.
Then there are the communities that are private. They have groups of mature people who DO appreciate different opinions, and are able to engage in constructive discourse. Obviously dishonest content, as judged by older accounts or mods, are removed. Ideally older or high-reputation accounts have greater voting weight.
The danger in the latter is that the community loses the diversity of thought if those top accounts misuse their power to direct a narrative, but as these private communities are numerous - participants can simply leave. You could even make the argument that they could be paid communities, if the quality and analysis of the community is high. For example, I pay to belong to the Arms Control Wonk Discord channel because that community provides detailed analysis on international events on WMDs/conflicts that you cannot find elsewhere. It is low on advocacy, and high on analysis.
HN is in the middle. They ban poor quality accounts, but it's still a free and open forum. For now it works, but as it becomes more popular, I've noticed a decline in content quality and an increase in advocacy.
There are two types of communities, in my opinion. ...and most, like HN, fall somewhere in the middle.
There's the community that's open to all, doesn't censor anything, and is flooded with low-quality or manipulated content.
Then there are the communities that are private. They have groups of mature people who DO appreciate different opinions, and are able to engage in constructive discourse. Obviously dishonest content, as judged by older accounts or mods, are removed. Ideally older or high-reputation accounts have greater voting weight.
The danger in the latter is that the community loses the diversity of thought if those top accounts misuse their power to direct a narrative, but as these private communities are numerous - participants can simply leave. You could even make the argument that they could be paid communities, if the quality and analysis of the community is high. For example, I pay to belong to the Arms Control Wonk Discord channel because that community provides detailed analysis on international events on WMDs/conflicts that you cannot find elsewhere. It is low on advocacy, and high on analysis.
HN is in the middle. They ban poor quality accounts, but it's still a free and open forum. For now it works, but as it becomes more popular, I've noticed a decline in content quality and an increase in advocacy.
> Dishonest reporting, and amplifying of dishonest posts on social media is not something you will ever get an apology for, because those efforts were never meant to survive scrutiny. They were meant to create "pressure" to cause reputational damage.
Exactly.
The correct way of handling these instances of bad behavior is to block, shadowban and ignore.
Exactly.
The correct way of handling these instances of bad behavior is to block, shadowban and ignore.
I think mockery is better than blocking. Many of the people involved have convinced each other they have the moral high ground.
>This is one of the reasons I believe social media sites should enact age-based voting.
I am not sure this works, on HN for example is easy enough for a small mob to disappear articles by flagging them, on top of that we get no reason why things were flagged or any way to undo it. Account age or karma is not enough, we need much more, make it harder to share/downvote or flag , like by making someone type at least 60 words and ban the accounts for abuse.
I am not sure this works, on HN for example is easy enough for a small mob to disappear articles by flagging them, on top of that we get no reason why things were flagged or any way to undo it. Account age or karma is not enough, we need much more, make it harder to share/downvote or flag , like by making someone type at least 60 words and ban the accounts for abuse.
Accounts that act poorly, usually do so in multiple ways. Banning accounts for bad behavior will likely curb other undetectable bad behavior.
HN is a bit unique. I suspect it is less influenced by bad behavior because it is small enough to fly under the radar.
HN is a bit unique. I suspect it is less influenced by bad behavior because it is small enough to fly under the radar.
You would think so because is hard to notice, I would not have believed it until I seen it with my own eyes, it was an article about RMS and there was a good discussion in the comments , in 5-10 minutes the entry was gone from the first pages, it was flagged, I think there were around 2-- comments in the end but most readers missed the article and instead they could see more then one day old stuff.
My proposal is to have people do a bit of work not just click a button, write an intelligent argument, it would at least filter the lazy ones out. It is similar when you know someone will review your code you double check your commit first and clean things up, someone might decide that the reason might not be as defendable so maybe a discussion should happen on this topic .
My proposal is to have people do a bit of work not just click a button, write an intelligent argument, it would at least filter the lazy ones out. It is similar when you know someone will review your code you double check your commit first and clean things up, someone might decide that the reason might not be as defendable so maybe a discussion should happen on this topic .
People started flagging anything about Stallman because there were over 100 submissions in 2 weeks.[1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636
Yeah, but if feels not right , people should use the down vote button , then if the majority pressed down then up then is clearly something it should not be discussed. It is not right that a small number of individuals could hide something, because there is not an equivalent mechanism for a similar number of people to un-flag it.
There were different articles about RMS, so why an article that has Red Hat in it's name should stay and other that has an author less prestigious should be hidden, I mean let the community decide, we always repeat ourselves in comments when we talk about latest Apple,Facebook or Google shit so if the users upvote and discuss something then don't fucking hide it, it means it is on topic, the nes that don't want to engage can skip the article or downvote it and upvote soem other article instead that is more interesting.
There were different articles about RMS, so why an article that has Red Hat in it's name should stay and other that has an author less prestigious should be hidden, I mean let the community decide, we always repeat ourselves in comments when we talk about latest Apple,Facebook or Google shit so if the users upvote and discuss something then don't fucking hide it, it means it is on topic, the nes that don't want to engage can skip the article or downvote it and upvote soem other article instead that is more interesting.
You can't downvote articles; you can only flag them [if you want to express disapproval].
Yeah, I was confused, we can't downvote. IMO flag should only be used for offtopic or content that is against side rules.
I nenver flagged any submission, even if I think is offtopic or low quality, I can ignore it, maybe the people that engaged it have other opinion so why I should decide for others what should they see on the home page.
My proposal might not be better , so I admit I can be wrong and I let the HN stuff to do their job how they think is best, just wanted to tell my opinion that even here stuff might be hidden for you because a small number of people decided it.
I nenver flagged any submission, even if I think is offtopic or low quality, I can ignore it, maybe the people that engaged it have other opinion so why I should decide for others what should they see on the home page.
My proposal might not be better , so I admit I can be wrong and I let the HN stuff to do their job how they think is best, just wanted to tell my opinion that even here stuff might be hidden for you because a small number of people decided it.
All submissions compete for attention.
Voting and commenting influence what submissions other people see too.
Voting and commenting influence what submissions other people see too.
I know but from my observations all the up-votes and comments can't undo a few flags. Maybe there should be a way so if same number of people contest the flags then it undoes it?
At least I think is not fair to use flag on an item I think it should get less attention, then I should flag all posts about the frameworks or languages that I think are getting too much attention (I do not flag and very rare downvote )
At least I think is not fair to use flag on an item I think it should get less attention, then I should flag all posts about the frameworks or languages that I think are getting too much attention (I do not flag and very rare downvote )
How did you observe the number of flags?
dang seemed to endorse flagging repetition and flame war. I don't know what to tell you if you interpret that as just too much attention.
dang seemed to endorse flagging repetition and flame war. I don't know what to tell you if you interpret that as just too much attention.
You haven't been to DeviantArt, have you.
There, "rageflagging" (flagging because you do not like what is being said, not because it violates some content policy) is fairly common. I don't know why it wouldn't be here on Hackernews, despite the latter's pretense to "quality discussion".
The difference is, at least on DeviantArt the staff intervene when there's a flag, and politely tell the flagger to block the person if they don't like what they have to say. Flagging on HN seems automated and algorithm-driven, which makes it abuse-prone.
There, "rageflagging" (flagging because you do not like what is being said, not because it violates some content policy) is fairly common. I don't know why it wouldn't be here on Hackernews, despite the latter's pretense to "quality discussion".
The difference is, at least on DeviantArt the staff intervene when there's a flag, and politely tell the flagger to block the person if they don't like what they have to say. Flagging on HN seems automated and algorithm-driven, which makes it abuse-prone.
You can also hide them. Flagging means something serious.
1. If you just downvote, the article will fall off the front page quickly enough.
2. If you disagree with a flag, then hit the “vouch” button and resurrect it.
2. If you disagree with a flag, then hit the “vouch” button and resurrect it.
HN has a system where submissions get flagged and possibly downranked if the number of comments exceeds its score as it is indicative of a flame war.
It is the opposite of what social media that optimize for "engagement" do.
The HN community also has a habit of downranking controversial topics. For example, subjects like women in tech and racism tend to get buried quickly. It is not that these are not worth talking about, but I think keeping these out help a great deal at preventing bad behavior to emerge. For me, it is a win, and it is not like places where you can talk politics are lacking on the net.
It is the opposite of what social media that optimize for "engagement" do.
The HN community also has a habit of downranking controversial topics. For example, subjects like women in tech and racism tend to get buried quickly. It is not that these are not worth talking about, but I think keeping these out help a great deal at preventing bad behavior to emerge. For me, it is a win, and it is not like places where you can talk politics are lacking on the net.
I prefer forums with clear rules, and if something is flagged then it should be only if is against a specific rule. I am not sure if is more preferable to debate the merit of yet another incomplete Tic-Tac-Toe in Rust then having a pasionate debate on app stores, free software or X.
Blame wars should be fixed differently IMO, you could temporary ban accounts that do not respect the rules, users can report comments and indicate the rule that is broken, this require better moderation and clear rules.
Though, I am not sure if HN could implement this, is too big and probably mi preferences work better on smaller niche forums with a few good moderators and a community that cares about the quality and pushes the participants to communicate in the allowed rules.
Blame wars should be fixed differently IMO, you could temporary ban accounts that do not respect the rules, users can report comments and indicate the rule that is broken, this require better moderation and clear rules.
Though, I am not sure if HN could implement this, is too big and probably mi preferences work better on smaller niche forums with a few good moderators and a community that cares about the quality and pushes the participants to communicate in the allowed rules.
Vouching appears to undo flagging. More people should vouch, if they see abuse.
[deleted]
>This is one of the reasons I believe social media sites should enact age-based voting. Such that older accounts that have withstood the reputational scrutiny, have greater influence.
Then those accounts just become hot commodities, or you front load a bunch of accurate reporting about banal stuff and bank that credibility for when you want to go fangs out.
Think about it, that's how we've gotten into the "post-trust" situation we're in now. Age does not against bullshittery confer protection. No technical measure will. No edifice is permanent except that in the churn, some people with standards will rise in spite of it all. They'll get torn at at every opportunity, but it's also why critical thinking is everyone's job. You can't delegate it. Nobody can be a habitual follower by default. You have to check.
So many firms exist with the sole purpose of perception/crisis management simply because it is so powerful a tool. No one can protect you from having to think and come to your own conclusions. I thought differently for years. That the media could be trusted for having skin in the game, and dedication to the ideals and tenets of their profession.
Then I learned about how crushlingly pragmatic the world is. Either you acknowledge it, and plot your way around it, or you get run over by it.
I leave with a few quotes and a rather notorious person who rammed home an illustration of this point.
>In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
-Abraham Lincoln, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, Debate with Stephen Douglas
>Whatever is right can be achieved through the irresistible power of awakened and informed public opinion. Our object, therefore, is not to inquire whether a thing can be done, but whether it ought to be done, and if it ought to be done, to so exert the forces of publicity that public opinion will compel it to be done.
-William Randolph Hearst, unpublished editorial memorandum, date unknown
>"You furnish the pictures, and I will furnish the war." - also William Randolph Hearst
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/173692
Make no mistake. The Fifth Estate is a pseudo-Governmental entity for a reason, and as a citizen, demands due diligence before letting one's sense of the world get run away with.
Then those accounts just become hot commodities, or you front load a bunch of accurate reporting about banal stuff and bank that credibility for when you want to go fangs out.
Think about it, that's how we've gotten into the "post-trust" situation we're in now. Age does not against bullshittery confer protection. No technical measure will. No edifice is permanent except that in the churn, some people with standards will rise in spite of it all. They'll get torn at at every opportunity, but it's also why critical thinking is everyone's job. You can't delegate it. Nobody can be a habitual follower by default. You have to check.
So many firms exist with the sole purpose of perception/crisis management simply because it is so powerful a tool. No one can protect you from having to think and come to your own conclusions. I thought differently for years. That the media could be trusted for having skin in the game, and dedication to the ideals and tenets of their profession.
Then I learned about how crushlingly pragmatic the world is. Either you acknowledge it, and plot your way around it, or you get run over by it.
I leave with a few quotes and a rather notorious person who rammed home an illustration of this point.
>In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
-Abraham Lincoln, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, Debate with Stephen Douglas
>Whatever is right can be achieved through the irresistible power of awakened and informed public opinion. Our object, therefore, is not to inquire whether a thing can be done, but whether it ought to be done, and if it ought to be done, to so exert the forces of publicity that public opinion will compel it to be done.
-William Randolph Hearst, unpublished editorial memorandum, date unknown
>"You furnish the pictures, and I will furnish the war." - also William Randolph Hearst
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/173692
Make no mistake. The Fifth Estate is a pseudo-Governmental entity for a reason, and as a citizen, demands due diligence before letting one's sense of the world get run away with.
[deleted]
I'd be surprised if we saw retractions, especially retractions reaching everyone who saw the original claims, but maybe Vice could write a piece attacking the daily beast article while the daily beast writes an article attacking the Vice one.
Yes, "Famed <rival publication> writes ableist insensitive articles with fabricated lies about an aspie."
[deleted]
What would good update mechanisms be? Is there any today, except "Follow this newspaper forever" and "Hope they do honest retractions"?
One idea.. A system attaches to every article an ID, users read the article and the reader saves the ID for the user and the system later informs him of retractions and critiques, if desired?
One idea.. A system attaches to every article an ID, users read the article and the reader saves the ID for the user and the system later informs him of retractions and critiques, if desired?
No, no that’s not how journalism works. They report the FACTS as they see them. /s
There’s no such thing as a retraction anymore, it’s just clarifications. I would have more faith in the media if they admitted when they were wrong, or at least presented, thoughtfully considered, opposing viewpoints. My faith in the media perhaps really took its first hit with Nick Sandman. I just felt weird that all these people were coming down on a kid. The level of vitriol was disturbing, and many it seems were wrong. I expect CNN to say so, but I don’t think they will, and thus the conflict remains unresolved.
There’s no such thing as a retraction anymore, it’s just clarifications. I would have more faith in the media if they admitted when they were wrong, or at least presented, thoughtfully considered, opposing viewpoints. My faith in the media perhaps really took its first hit with Nick Sandman. I just felt weird that all these people were coming down on a kid. The level of vitriol was disturbing, and many it seems were wrong. I expect CNN to say so, but I don’t think they will, and thus the conflict remains unresolved.
> There’s no such thing as a retraction anymore, it’s just clarifications.
I think journalism always mostly did "corrections."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correction_(newspaper)
I think journalism always mostly did "corrections."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correction_(newspaper)
Ah thank you, quite interesting. Allow me to clarify: when I was riding those words I had an article on a webpage in my mind. Because articles are so online now, it’s easy to change things and call them clarifications, and people miss the slight of hand that it might have been actually a retraction of statements.
I do recall clarifications and amplifications in physical newspapers, always intriguing.
I do recall clarifications and amplifications in physical newspapers, always intriguing.
> Ah thank you, quite interesting. Allow me to clarify: when I was riding those words I had an article on a webpage in my mind. Because articles are so online now, it’s easy to change things and call them clarifications, and people miss the slight of hand that it might have been actually a retraction of statements.
For better or worse, online news articles are living documents now. Especially in breaking stories, I've seen them get updated over the day/week with all kinds of things (e.g. corrections, new developments, rewrites, etc.). Ideally they'd expose a revision history like Wikipedia, but that's probably more of a nice-to-have since their editorial processes aren't crowdsourced.
I suppose they've embraced some of the "move fast and break things" ethos of tech sector (because you can also fix things fast).
For better or worse, online news articles are living documents now. Especially in breaking stories, I've seen them get updated over the day/week with all kinds of things (e.g. corrections, new developments, rewrites, etc.). Ideally they'd expose a revision history like Wikipedia, but that's probably more of a nice-to-have since their editorial processes aren't crowdsourced.
I suppose they've embraced some of the "move fast and break things" ethos of tech sector (because you can also fix things fast).
> revision history
> nice-to-have
I think that explicit changelogs for a journalistic document are actually necessary in order to verify the trustworthiness of the publisher - how else are you going to notice when they start silently "updating" articles that were pushing an extreme (and factually incorrect) narrative at publishing time?
> nice-to-have
I think that explicit changelogs for a journalistic document are actually necessary in order to verify the trustworthiness of the publisher - how else are you going to notice when they start silently "updating" articles that were pushing an extreme (and factually incorrect) narrative at publishing time?
Just as "television will eventually be a window in a window manager"...
"A newspaper edition will eventually be a repository with good comments on commits"???
"A newspaper edition will eventually be a repository with good comments on commits"???
You won't see "corrections" along the top bar of "news" on the webpages either. It will always be hidden away somewhere obscure unless their misreporting causes public outrage, and then sometimes they'll actually do a proper retraction.
> It will always be hidden away somewhere obscure
If by "obscure" you mean "on the actual article with the error," sure. But that seems like where the correction note should go.
If by "obscure" you mean "on the actual article with the error," sure. But that seems like where the correction note should go.
Yeah. Anytime "the media" reports about things I personally know about, it becomes obvious how much they get wrong. Too many journalists believe they are on a political crusade. They get enraged by their own stories and actively try to enrage everyone else.
Even completely factual reporting can still be biased. Even neutrality is a bias.
RMS does not call for that and it isn't necessary. He acknowledges his own tone-deafness. Plus, people understand editorials like those are interpretations of words. If you want the facts you look at the original source material and decide for yourself.
Fox news viewers don't realize that 3/4 of fox news channel is opinion shows which don't have to be correct or even tell the truth because it's opinion.
Apologize for what? This post doesn't make him less accountable for what he wrote in that email.
It may have come across as being insensitive, but what he wrote in that email wasn't technically wrong.
Being correct is entirely orthogonal to being appropriate.
To forgive someone's social incompetence could be considered appropriate in this context.
Social incompetence always made RMS incompetent as a spokeperson / public speaker.
I'm grateful for his work on GPL and Free Software but this does not make him a suitable spokeperson.
I'm grateful for his work on GPL and Free Software but this does not make him a suitable spokeperson.
For someone in a leadership role, it could be considered an inability to perform basic job responsibilities.
I agree. Forgiveness does not mean that he should retain his role. However I think his comments have been distorted and I'm not sure this is any worse than him eating the skin off his foot.
Appropriate or not, it was the truth, and whether people feel like hearing it or not, the truth is always justified in standing up for.
I disagree. There are plenty of instances where a truthful statement isn’t worth standing up for. For example: statements that are unimportant, irrelevant, inconsequential, etc, in the context of the broader situation.
[deleted]
chc(3)
> wasn't technically wrong
That is your opinion. Others may disagree.
> It may have come across as being insensitive
Sensitivity is a huge part of communication despite RMS acting otherwise. Arguably he'd find more success knowing which battles to fight against whom, when and how.
That is your opinion. Others may disagree.
> It may have come across as being insensitive
Sensitivity is a huge part of communication despite RMS acting otherwise. Arguably he'd find more success knowing which battles to fight against whom, when and how.
Modern reporting is about views. Click bait titles that state the worst get clicks. Nuanced truth bored people.
As long as we haven't found a way to entertain the masses without these embellishments I have no hope for an honest media.
Just remember this when they are stirring political division. This president caused this crisis, or this politician said this horrible thing. It's probably not as bad as they say it is.
As long as we haven't found a way to entertain the masses without these embellishments I have no hope for an honest media.
Just remember this when they are stirring political division. This president caused this crisis, or this politician said this horrible thing. It's probably not as bad as they say it is.
One problem with click-bait titles is that people don't click; they just stop at the title and discuss and promote that message.
Thanks for posting these.
I was out of the loop on this and tracking down the reporting to which RMS is replying was proving more difficult than expected.
I was out of the loop on this and tracking down the reporting to which RMS is replying was proving more difficult than expected.
> I was out of the loop on this
Summary: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
Summary: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
I wonder if it's feasible to create some kind of database of reporters and their reliability - 'John doe has written n articles that turned out to be fundamentally wrong', Jane doe has written m articles that were fundamentally wrong'.
I haven't followed this in much detail yet, but https://thefactual.com/how-it-works mentions ranking reporters for their expertise in particular subjects.
Saw site mentioned in an HN comment a few weeks ago. So far appears to be an "objective" aggregator.
Saw site mentioned in an HN comment a few weeks ago. So far appears to be an "objective" aggregator.
That's not how mobs operate effectively, unfortunately.
That would require those journalists be worthy of the applause they tell society it both owes and gives to them.
The activists won their war. No reason for them to declare it unjust.
The activists won their war. No reason for them to declare it unjust.
> Now, would the journalists who wrote articles with titles that are a variation of "RMS defended Epstein" [1,2] apologize or at least correct their articles?
If it does not create outrage or get any clicks, they have no incentive to do it. It's not like journalists have a conscience.
If it does not create outrage or get any clicks, they have no incentive to do it. It's not like journalists have a conscience.
They've declared their verdict and moved on :) . It's the 24/7 newscycle they don't have time for corrections unless it is recent and they can put it on the "backpage"
DanBC(2)
Too late, there is no redemption for Stallman. /s
RMS disaffiliated from MIT in the '80s (see "Commencing the project" in https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html), so I'm not sure that any headline saying "Famed MIT Computer Scientist..." to refer to him was interested in accuracy in the first place.
He held a position at MIT until 2019.[1]
[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September...
[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September...
I was at MIT from 2006-11, including as a student researcher at CSAIL from 2007 onwards, and I was on the CSAIL mailing list until I unsubscribed (coincidentally) a week or so before that post.
In at least the time that I was at MIT/CSAIL, and to my knowledge thereafter, RMS was not employed by MIT nor was he a student at MIT. He had an email/UNIX account at CSAIL, and he had an office, sponsored by some very senior faculty members, and he was of course around the campus frequently - but the campus is fairly open about these things, as you'd expect from an academic institution, and it's pretty straightforward for faculty to sponsor anyone they like as an "affiliate" (though of course office space is much harder).
He continues to have his CSAIL account, though I believe he no longer has his office. I believe that's all that he means by the term "my position." He did not have a staff role or anything that he resigned.
In at least the time that I was at MIT/CSAIL, and to my knowledge thereafter, RMS was not employed by MIT nor was he a student at MIT. He had an email/UNIX account at CSAIL, and he had an office, sponsored by some very senior faculty members, and he was of course around the campus frequently - but the campus is fairly open about these things, as you'd expect from an academic institution, and it's pretty straightforward for faculty to sponsor anyone they like as an "affiliate" (though of course office space is much harder).
He continues to have his CSAIL account, though I believe he no longer has his office. I believe that's all that he means by the term "my position." He did not have a staff role or anything that he resigned.
He held a visiting scientist title and an office. The affiliation was less substantial than a professorship but not nothing.
> RMS disaffiliated from MIT in the '80s ...
> sponsored by some very senior faculty members, .... It's pretty straightforward for faculty to sponsor anyone they like as an "affiliate" (though of course office space is much harder).
I think that if someone is sponsored by senior MIT faculty to the point of having an office on campus that's a pretty good claim to being MIT-affiliated.
> sponsored by some very senior faculty members, .... It's pretty straightforward for faculty to sponsor anyone they like as an "affiliate" (though of course office space is much harder).
I think that if someone is sponsored by senior MIT faculty to the point of having an office on campus that's a pretty good claim to being MIT-affiliated.
He resigned his paid job, but was later brought back as unpaid (and maybe just honorary) staff. I'm not sure if he ever actually did anything for MIT in that unpaid role. I kind of suspect it was a gift to grant him an office and other MIT resources for his work on GNU. [GNU itself used to have some small lab space at MIT, for use by other volunteers.] But even so, he was listed in the MIT directory as a Visiting Scientist.
The Minsky defense was not the primary, most important reason RMS can't serve as an effective, inclusive leader for free software, it was just the one that got the most attention. This does nothing to address the numerous complaints of harassment towards MIT students, the _other_ times he spoke out in implicit support of pedophilia, the public gaffes that are unacceptable as a public representative (e.g. the foot skin eating thing), and the fact that the FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything besides virtue signal to others about how pure and ethical they are.
He has been treated unfairly many times and that is, completely independent of whether he's the best choice as leader for the FSF, wrong. You do it here: "the _other_times he spoke out in implicit support of pedophilia...". He wants to have a discussion about what makes sex between people of varying ages wrong. He applies normative principles to it and can't see why it's wrong (e.g., age of consent varies...why would what is okay in one place be abominable 100 meters away?). I'm sure professional philosophers have written on this at length, and without being punished for going down the exact same road he has. But more importantly he doesn't understand very well that the mere mention of this line of inquiry is borderline reputation suicide because of [blue-team elite coastal] public mores idiosyncratic to 2020 rich western countries.
I'm also not sure why "inclusive" is a good criterion for FSF leader, it seems like just a hollow shibboleth buzzword at this point. People who harp on "inclusion" are usually the most interested in exclusion.
I'm also not sure why "inclusive" is a good criterion for FSF leader, it seems like just a hollow shibboleth buzzword at this point. People who harp on "inclusion" are usually the most interested in exclusion.
> He wants to have a discussion about what makes sex between people of varying ages wrong.
That alone makes him unfit to lead anything (among the many other things he's done). I do not want to hear his opinion on this subject.
That alone makes him unfit to lead anything (among the many other things he's done). I do not want to hear his opinion on this subject.
So do not read his private webpage (which is full of his personal political opinions). RMS clearly separates his free software-related activities and other personal opinions.
The OP is on fsf.org.
But OP does not contain discussion about sex with minors. That discussion was (in the past) on his personal web stallman.org .
Yes it does. It claims the allegations against Minsky are false. That has not been proven and the allegations are highly credible. It's an offensive and stupid thing to say, especially publicly, especially when you're "apologizing".
Innocent until proven guilty? The accusation were neither proven to be true, so what is up with your really flawed reasoning?
The ability to be an effective leader is not a court of law. I'm totally ok calling for someone to step down after they defend statutory rape, in theory and practice (which RMS did both).
> It claims the allegations against Minsky are false.
I don't think he did.
I don't think he did.
From the post:
"False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense. I would have done it for anyone. Police brutality makes me angry, but when the cops lie about their victims afterwards, that false accusation is the ultimate outrage for me."
"False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense. I would have done it for anyone. Police brutality makes me angry, but when the cops lie about their victims afterwards, that false accusation is the ultimate outrage for me."
yes, exactly.
He was arguing that he was wrongfully accused of rape, because according to the testimony the sex never happened and nobody has been able to prove otherwise (an eyewitness swears that Minsky refused her).
He then added that even if the sex happened, and he had no doubt that it could be possible, the victim was sent to him to act as willing, so that would make it statutory rape, due to the age of the girl (unknown to Minsky at the time).
He was contesting the legal semantics, not the fact per se.
More importantly, he was talking about it on the mailing list of MIT in response to this
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims)”
In his own words Stallam said
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
[...]
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
Hardly a defense, he was calling for better and more precise terms to describe what happened.
Something I would expect from someone of his age talking with young students, fueled by passion and rage
I’m writing this because I’m too angry to work. says Selam G. on her blog post.
Angry people that let their anger win never made the World a better place IMO.
Whatever is the truth, I think it takes courage to defend someone you know "only distantly" when you think he's been wrongfully accused (in your opinion) and to do it publicly even though that could cost you your career and you have nothing to gain.
Anyway Minsky's long been dead.
He was arguing that he was wrongfully accused of rape, because according to the testimony the sex never happened and nobody has been able to prove otherwise (an eyewitness swears that Minsky refused her).
He then added that even if the sex happened, and he had no doubt that it could be possible, the victim was sent to him to act as willing, so that would make it statutory rape, due to the age of the girl (unknown to Minsky at the time).
He was contesting the legal semantics, not the fact per se.
More importantly, he was talking about it on the mailing list of MIT in response to this
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims)”
In his own words Stallam said
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
[...]
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
Hardly a defense, he was calling for better and more precise terms to describe what happened.
Something I would expect from someone of his age talking with young students, fueled by passion and rage
I’m writing this because I’m too angry to work. says Selam G. on her blog post.
Angry people that let their anger win never made the World a better place IMO.
Whatever is the truth, I think it takes courage to defend someone you know "only distantly" when you think he's been wrongfully accused (in your opinion) and to do it publicly even though that could cost you your career and you have nothing to gain.
Anyway Minsky's long been dead.
No, it doesn't make him unfit. It makes him curious and open-minded. How are we as a society supposed to come to conclusions about ethical issues without examining them? If we adopted your stance, nothing would ever change. Conservatives like you would have had the exact same stance on homosexuality 100 years ago: "Zomg no, it's so terrible we won't even consider talking about it except to condemn, and we'll punish people who do try to have an honest conversation". I say this as a person who also is a conservative with respect to statutory rape laws.
Are you comparing the rape of a minor to homosexuality?
I would not work with someone who conversed like this in a professional setting. I'm not alone. It's wildly inappropriate at the very least. It's not his field and he's personally involved with the accused.
I would not work with someone who conversed like this in a professional setting. I'm not alone. It's wildly inappropriate at the very least. It's not his field and he's personally involved with the accused.
"Are you comparing the rape of a minor to homosexuality?"
Yes, that's exactly it. Respectable people would have felt the same way about homosexuality 100 years ago as you do about sex involving minors.
Further, your characterization as "rape of a minor" is problematic. What's a minor? If one minor is involved, it automatically becomes rape? In much of Europe ages of consent are surprisingly low (14) to Americans, who tend to expect 18. What about a 17 year old and a 19 year old? Two 14 year olds? A 15 year old and a 20 year old? Is what's 100% wrong and prison-bound in the U.S. morally permissible in Spain because the laws are different?
Or maybe you have access to the Objective Moral Truths, such that this game is easy for you? If so, do share. It'd make all of this so much easier.
Yes, that's exactly it. Respectable people would have felt the same way about homosexuality 100 years ago as you do about sex involving minors.
Further, your characterization as "rape of a minor" is problematic. What's a minor? If one minor is involved, it automatically becomes rape? In much of Europe ages of consent are surprisingly low (14) to Americans, who tend to expect 18. What about a 17 year old and a 19 year old? Two 14 year olds? A 15 year old and a 20 year old? Is what's 100% wrong and prison-bound in the U.S. morally permissible in Spain because the laws are different?
Or maybe you have access to the Objective Moral Truths, such that this game is easy for you? If so, do share. It'd make all of this so much easier.
> If one minor is involved, it automatically becomes rape?
YES. This is how it works legally, because one person does not have the emotional and intellectual maturity to provide fully informed consent.
YES. This is how it works legally, because one person does not have the emotional and intellectual maturity to provide fully informed consent.
I really think that lumping forcible rape in the same category as a 17 year old successfuly seducing a 21 year old in California (as opposed to, say, Spain) is bad for discourse.
Even if we grant the latter is harmful and wrong, the mechanism via which the harm happens is different, as is the amount of harm.
Even if we grant the latter is harmful and wrong, the mechanism via which the harm happens is different, as is the amount of harm.
>a 17 year old successfuly seducing a 21 year old
Most countries have laws allowing relationships within an age difference of 3 or 4 or 5 years.
But some people want to blur the lines around consent claiming that a 15yo can consent to sex with some 45yo without the latter being held responsible.
> the mechanism via which the harm happens is different, as is the amount of harm
I never argued otherwise.
Just like for any other illegal behavior, legal systems are designed take into account the circumstance and impact of an event.
But this does not change the initial point about informed consent and rape being rape.
Most countries have laws allowing relationships within an age difference of 3 or 4 or 5 years.
But some people want to blur the lines around consent claiming that a 15yo can consent to sex with some 45yo without the latter being held responsible.
> the mechanism via which the harm happens is different, as is the amount of harm
I never argued otherwise.
Just like for any other illegal behavior, legal systems are designed take into account the circumstance and impact of an event.
But this does not change the initial point about informed consent and rape being rape.
> But this does not change the initial point about informed consent and rape being rape.
I think it does. "Rape being rape" relies on the word having a precise meaning where all things in the category share essential characteristics that allow you to make moral judgements based on category membership.
But "rape", like all heavily contested political words with high moral weight, is definitely not such a word. It has a canonical example value (unfortunately I feel I have to be specific here: a stranger dragging a fighting women into the bushes and sticking his penis in her until he cums), but has a range of meanings that varies fairly drastically across conversational contexts (e.g. we talking ethics/morality? Law? Descriptiveness?), geography (e.g. is drunk sex rape? Depends on jurisdiction. What counts as a "minor"?), time and even subcultures.
I think it does. "Rape being rape" relies on the word having a precise meaning where all things in the category share essential characteristics that allow you to make moral judgements based on category membership.
But "rape", like all heavily contested political words with high moral weight, is definitely not such a word. It has a canonical example value (unfortunately I feel I have to be specific here: a stranger dragging a fighting women into the bushes and sticking his penis in her until he cums), but has a range of meanings that varies fairly drastically across conversational contexts (e.g. we talking ethics/morality? Law? Descriptiveness?), geography (e.g. is drunk sex rape? Depends on jurisdiction. What counts as a "minor"?), time and even subcultures.
No, it doesn't.
What about Japan where age of consent is 13?
Or Switzerland were the age of consent is 16, although if the age gap between parties is three years or less – for example between a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old – no charges can be brought
What about Japan where age of consent is 13?
Or Switzerland were the age of consent is 16, although if the age gap between parties is three years or less – for example between a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old – no charges can be brought
solosoyokaze(2)
> He wants to have a discussion about what makes sex between people of varying ages wrong.
Great, it's an interesting philosophical question. If the issue is so important to him, he should transition to a career in philosophy, or sociology, or anthropology.
However, as a board member of the FSF, a public-facing leadership role, his job is to promote free software and nothing but free software. He shouldn't muddle that message by talking about ideas that are generally taboo in normal conversation. And I don't think it's just the [blue-team elite coastal] public for whom sex-with-minors talk is not regular dinner conversation, or at least I hope it's not.
Great, it's an interesting philosophical question. If the issue is so important to him, he should transition to a career in philosophy, or sociology, or anthropology.
However, as a board member of the FSF, a public-facing leadership role, his job is to promote free software and nothing but free software. He shouldn't muddle that message by talking about ideas that are generally taboo in normal conversation. And I don't think it's just the [blue-team elite coastal] public for whom sex-with-minors talk is not regular dinner conversation, or at least I hope it's not.
> Great, it's an interesting philosophical question. If the issue is so important to him, he should transition to a career in philosophy, or sociology, or anthropology.
By that logic, a person without primary job in social study can criticise him for his social behaviour. People are more than just what they work on and everyone has ideas to themselves how society should be including me, you and him and sometimes like to tell the world about this. I generally tend to ignore that, e.g. when a programmer tells how bad trump is or what should be the age for consent in this case. But this doesn't mean there should be anything bad in expressing social opinion publicly.
By that logic, a person without primary job in social study can criticise him for his social behaviour. People are more than just what they work on and everyone has ideas to themselves how society should be including me, you and him and sometimes like to tell the world about this. I generally tend to ignore that, e.g. when a programmer tells how bad trump is or what should be the age for consent in this case. But this doesn't mean there should be anything bad in expressing social opinion publicly.
Agree with you that the discussion shouldn't be part of his job. But there should also be room for him to have a public discussion that isn't part of his job. I don't recall the details, were parts of this discussion on the fsf home page or something?
Not FSF's site that I know of, but there's mentions of these "consensual pedo" stuff on his blog. As he's a visible spokesperson, that means his blog content is part of his overall role, and not something that can be treated in isolation.
I'd also push back on the post further up: It's not a particularly interesting philosophical question, and I don't think pure inquiry is RMS's goal here given his tendency to aggressively hit on women that are completely uninterested in him in contexts where such behavior is inappropriate.
I'd also push back on the post further up: It's not a particularly interesting philosophical question, and I don't think pure inquiry is RMS's goal here given his tendency to aggressively hit on women that are completely uninterested in him in contexts where such behavior is inappropriate.
His blog clearly states: "This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman.
The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project.
For the sake of separation, this site has always been hosted elsewhere and managed separately. "
That's far from enough.
"As he's a visible spokesperson, that means his blog content is part of his overall role, and not something that can be treated in isolation."
I agree this is de facto the case. It's kind of sad, though, and I don't think the world needs to be this way. There should be a way for an e.g. CEO or similar to have a life and persona outside of a job.
I agree this is de facto the case. It's kind of sad, though, and I don't think the world needs to be this way. There should be a way for an e.g. CEO or similar to have a life and persona outside of a job.
> There should be a way for an e.g. CEO or similar to have a life and persona outside of a job.
It's called private life for a reason: it's not in public.
But when acting as a public speaker and spokeperson you should be acting accordingly.
Weird remarks about age of consent on public mailing lists, or hitting on every young woman at a conference or eating skin from a foot in front of a whole audience are all behaviors that put the whole FOSS movement in a bad light.
It's called private life for a reason: it's not in public.
But when acting as a public speaker and spokeperson you should be acting accordingly.
Weird remarks about age of consent on public mailing lists, or hitting on every young woman at a conference or eating skin from a foot in front of a whole audience are all behaviors that put the whole FOSS movement in a bad light.
Downvoting without commenting... interesting.
I'd love to see what contributions to FLOSS the downvoters have achieved.
I'd love to see what contributions to FLOSS the downvoters have achieved.
There are various ways to do that. Plenty of famous people manage to figure it out. That's not what RMS was after. He's putting this stuff up on his blog, which he uses for activism, not abstract philosophical inquiry.
"How dare people have opinions on politics or society on their personal web blogs". How is this any different than telling celebrities to pipe down, as if people aren't human anymore once they become famous?
When you have the megaphone of fame in your hand, you can't pretend it doesn't exist. That kind of influence is an enormous privilege, one that nearly everyone that has it has had to chase aggressively their entire careers if not lives. You cannot pretend a celebrity pontificating into a camera that is broadcasting to 100's of millions of people is the same thing as someone's personal weblog that no one ever reads. You can't abstract or generalize to "principles" in that sense over this. Once you're famous you have to own that, or take yourself out of the spotlight. As I said in another comment, there are many famous people who've figured out how to self actualize their lives without attracting attention.
People also make the choice to cling onto famous peoples' words. They could just as well not do that.
> That kind of influence is an enormous privilege, one that nearly everyone that has it has had to chase aggressively their entire careers if not lives.
I don't think RMS did that, and I don't think "nearly everyone that has it has had to chase [it]". Some people do, and others just... become (in)famous in their respective fields. Imagine just wanting to be good at basketball, getting some of level of fame, and then just hearing "shut up and dribble", etc.
> there are many famous people who've figured out how to self actualize their lives without attracting attention
And how does one go about this without e.g. not saying anything at all? Discussing politics or societal ills is -always- going to irk some people. It's really not fair to say that, because someone now has some level of reach, that they have to basically say nothing at all. Why is there no personal responsibility or accountability? I'm going to assume the controversial stance here that people just don't raise children right, to not dwell on peoples' words just because they're "famous". And that is a larger societal issue than celebrities simply having opinions as a human being.
> That kind of influence is an enormous privilege, one that nearly everyone that has it has had to chase aggressively their entire careers if not lives.
I don't think RMS did that, and I don't think "nearly everyone that has it has had to chase [it]". Some people do, and others just... become (in)famous in their respective fields. Imagine just wanting to be good at basketball, getting some of level of fame, and then just hearing "shut up and dribble", etc.
> there are many famous people who've figured out how to self actualize their lives without attracting attention
And how does one go about this without e.g. not saying anything at all? Discussing politics or societal ills is -always- going to irk some people. It's really not fair to say that, because someone now has some level of reach, that they have to basically say nothing at all. Why is there no personal responsibility or accountability? I'm going to assume the controversial stance here that people just don't raise children right, to not dwell on peoples' words just because they're "famous". And that is a larger societal issue than celebrities simply having opinions as a human being.
> People also make the choice to cling onto famous peoples' words. They could just as well not do that.
We cannot change the behavior of every person in the world.
But we can change the people who represent the FOSS community to the world.
We cannot change the behavior of every person in the world.
But we can change the people who represent the FOSS community to the world.
> You cannot pretend a celebrity pontificating into a camera that is broadcasting to 100's of millions of people is the same thing as someone's personal weblog that no one ever reads.
I'd say it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference.
I'd say it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference.
Who arises to that status is becoming more organic, which is probably a good thing in my book, but access to the top tiers of success/influence remains closely guarded by the people with the power to do so.
People can say whatever they want. If you don’t like someone’s specific critique, tell us why instead just saying it is bad to critique famous people.
Being a public figure has a lot of downsides. Maybe society could, as a whole, be a bit nicer to public figures (and everyone else for that matter). But that is a bigger ask. And it’s not exactly clear how to achieve that.
Being a public figure has a lot of downsides. Maybe society could, as a whole, be a bit nicer to public figures (and everyone else for that matter). But that is a bigger ask. And it’s not exactly clear how to achieve that.
...yeah, and activism should be an acceptable (albeit insufferable) part of one's non-work persona.
No, they were on his personal site where he writes voluminous “political notes”.
The only reason that didn’t create more controversy before is that he is very left-wing politically and so are most power brokers in the industry. So being outspoken about the Iraq war, etc didn’t get him canceled in the same way as happened to the Dixie chicks. If he were a strident Republican I suspect his political notes would have put him in trouble far sooner.
One could certainly argue that as an ambassador for FLOSS he should have avoided all politics on his website, on the other hand i guess it was only the two (very bad) notes on statutory rape that were dredged up later, along with a variety of other material, to justify the campaign against him since the initial Epstein/Minsky related allegation fell apart so quickly.
The only reason that didn’t create more controversy before is that he is very left-wing politically and so are most power brokers in the industry. So being outspoken about the Iraq war, etc didn’t get him canceled in the same way as happened to the Dixie chicks. If he were a strident Republican I suspect his political notes would have put him in trouble far sooner.
One could certainly argue that as an ambassador for FLOSS he should have avoided all politics on his website, on the other hand i guess it was only the two (very bad) notes on statutory rape that were dredged up later, along with a variety of other material, to justify the campaign against him since the initial Epstein/Minsky related allegation fell apart so quickly.
> He wants to have a discussion about what makes sex between people of varying ages wrong
Wtf does that have to do with free software?
And why does he keep doing this over and over again? There's no smoke without fire
Wtf does that have to do with free software?
And why does he keep doing this over and over again? There's no smoke without fire
He was writing those things on his personal web site, before anyone called them blogs.
It has nothing to do with free software, you're right, they are his opinions on stuff.
It has nothing to do with free software, you're right, they are his opinions on stuff.
> completely independent of whether he's the best choice as leader for the FSF
It's not independent, you can't just drop the context. RMS the 9-5 software dev at some nameless corporation having this discussion is, while still unacceptable (because the relevant society has decided that it is obvious why sex with minors is harmful), not nearly as impactful as RMS the respected-by-many leader of the free software movement. The clout he has from that position and work makes him influential even outside of the sphere, as well as affecting people who might join the movement but are pushed away because they find his other opinions unacceptable.
That's why we're talking about it in this comment thread instead of ignoring it like we do most of the weird takes on the internet.
> I'm also not sure why "inclusive" is a good criterion for FSF leader, it seems like just a hollow shibboleth buzzword at this point. People who harp on "inclusion" are usually the most interested in exclusion.
The paradox of tolerance explains why it might feel like being inclusive of many groups of people involves exclusion.
It's not independent, you can't just drop the context. RMS the 9-5 software dev at some nameless corporation having this discussion is, while still unacceptable (because the relevant society has decided that it is obvious why sex with minors is harmful), not nearly as impactful as RMS the respected-by-many leader of the free software movement. The clout he has from that position and work makes him influential even outside of the sphere, as well as affecting people who might join the movement but are pushed away because they find his other opinions unacceptable.
That's why we're talking about it in this comment thread instead of ignoring it like we do most of the weird takes on the internet.
> I'm also not sure why "inclusive" is a good criterion for FSF leader, it seems like just a hollow shibboleth buzzword at this point. People who harp on "inclusion" are usually the most interested in exclusion.
The paradox of tolerance explains why it might feel like being inclusive of many groups of people involves exclusion.
> because the relevant society has decided that it is obvious why sex with minors is harmful
Society declares a lot of things obviously wrong and most of us never really examine why they are wrong, particularly from first principles. I think being willing to examine and question these kinds of assumptions fosters a very open culture where people aren't afraid to speak up (unlike the other 99% of the world where you live in fear).
E.g. I'm in the same boat Stalman was in that I've never recieved a satisfactory exaplanation from first principles about why mutually agreed (using that term because "consensual" has legal meanings) non-penetrative sexual interaction between a child and an adult is harmful. I've just been told to take it on faith that it causes horrible damage (and ignore the obvious confounders in the "studies"/anecdotes and the surrounding society working hard at placing the victim label on the child, which could easily cause damage itself).
Society declares a lot of things obviously wrong and most of us never really examine why they are wrong, particularly from first principles. I think being willing to examine and question these kinds of assumptions fosters a very open culture where people aren't afraid to speak up (unlike the other 99% of the world where you live in fear).
E.g. I'm in the same boat Stalman was in that I've never recieved a satisfactory exaplanation from first principles about why mutually agreed (using that term because "consensual" has legal meanings) non-penetrative sexual interaction between a child and an adult is harmful. I've just been told to take it on faith that it causes horrible damage (and ignore the obvious confounders in the "studies"/anecdotes and the surrounding society working hard at placing the victim label on the child, which could easily cause damage itself).
I appreciate your thoughtful reply.
I think the problem in it with respect to mine lies here: "because the relevant society has decided that it is obvious why sex with minors is harmful"
But it's not obvious who is a minor or when a minor having sex is wrong. I commented elsewhere, but what about two 15 year olds? A 15 and a 20? In some country X where age of consent is 14, vs. in some country Y where age of consent is 18--is there a moral difference? Where is the real moral line that society has decided upon, according to you? 17.375 years?
The Minsky / RMS thing involved this sort of question. The girl was 17.
I think the problem in it with respect to mine lies here: "because the relevant society has decided that it is obvious why sex with minors is harmful"
But it's not obvious who is a minor or when a minor having sex is wrong. I commented elsewhere, but what about two 15 year olds? A 15 and a 20? In some country X where age of consent is 14, vs. in some country Y where age of consent is 18--is there a moral difference? Where is the real moral line that society has decided upon, according to you? 17.375 years?
The Minsky / RMS thing involved this sort of question. The girl was 17.
That was the question RMS asked, but it is oblivious of a way more relevant point: the girl was a victim of human trafficking. Regardless of age a sex slave cannot consent.
Not to mention how clueless you have to be to discuss age of consent laws on a many-thousand person workplace mailing list with teenagers on it.
Not to mention how clueless you have to be to discuss age of consent laws on a many-thousand person workplace mailing list with teenagers on it.
...right, but you can't look at someone and based on looks end up thinking, "That person is a victim of human trafficking!" in the same way you might look at someone and think, "That person might be younger than 18 [or whatever the local law says]!". It might be possible to blame Minsky for the second thing, but the first seems completely crazy to me.
Um, what? I must be misunderstanding you because rape isn't OK just because the perpetrator has plausible deniability about whether it was intentional. Doubly so when there is a strong case he knew or should have known something something was wrong.
Yeah, I think there's a misunderstanding. Basically, there is no possible way to know by looking at 17-y-o girl at some island party that she has been "sex trafficked". But there is a reason to suspect that a 17-y-o girl is less than 18 by looking...she looks about 17. So it makes sense to consider blaming Minsky for failing on the second thing, but to consider blaming him for the sex trafficking aspect doesn't make any sense at all. Edit: and I should be fair to Minsky's memory, there is no evidence he had sex with the 17-y-o, and significant evidence that he did not.
that's completely fair!
but on the other hand some might think that the FSF is becoming one of those organizations were "social indignation" has more importance than "due process" and it might alienate old and new contributors that value that aspect.
Politics is always a trade off, you can't make everybody happy.
but on the other hand some might think that the FSF is becoming one of those organizations were "social indignation" has more importance than "due process" and it might alienate old and new contributors that value that aspect.
Politics is always a trade off, you can't make everybody happy.
The former head of the aclu (a woman) defends Stallman and his various positions. The post was shared a lot last month and is a good read about the entire stallman situation.
https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web-rms
He's mistreated many FSF staff members, many LibrePlanet attendees, many GNU project contributors, etc. The fact that the public discourse is focused on the Epstein-related comments does RMS and the FSF a huge favor by pointing the spotlight away from the real issue which has been happening for decades.
It makes painfully obvious the point they don't get it. They really, willingly or not, refuse to understand what the issues here are.
It's a bit rich that you accuse those who didn't take the initial smear campaign at face value of moving the goal posts.
First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false.
Then it was predatory behaviour at MIT with three quotes from over 3 decades, a sign on his door, and a mattress doused in implications.
Then it was simply "making some people uncomfortable", which is sort of a given if you talk about free software to groups of people who are in the proprietary software industry, and says nothing at all.
If you want the "real issues" addressed, stop drowning them in fabrications.
First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false.
Then it was predatory behaviour at MIT with three quotes from over 3 decades, a sign on his door, and a mattress doused in implications.
Then it was simply "making some people uncomfortable", which is sort of a given if you talk about free software to groups of people who are in the proprietary software industry, and says nothing at all.
If you want the "real issues" addressed, stop drowning them in fabrications.
Until you've been as close to rms as the people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately, whatever silly argument you are trying to make doesn't have a leg to stand on.
> people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately
Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1].
Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2].
I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the matter at hand (say, Don Knuth), but there's nothing wrong with politely declining their opinions when it comes to "issues" or how to become a "better" person.
Again, no disrespect to Bushnell, who I'm sure did a fine job, but I'm not willing to take his assessment of the personality of an avouched atheist at face value.
[1]https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
[2] well, working for Google can be debatable depending on what you do there.
Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1].
Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2].
I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the matter at hand (say, Don Knuth), but there's nothing wrong with politely declining their opinions when it comes to "issues" or how to become a "better" person.
Again, no disrespect to Bushnell, who I'm sure did a fine job, but I'm not willing to take his assessment of the personality of an avouched atheist at face value.
[1]https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
[2] well, working for Google can be debatable depending on what you do there.
> Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell
It doesn't have to be. I've known over a dozen people working at the FSF over the years, and they _all_ had the same stories about trying to avoid RMS as much as physically possible because of his behavior and how he treated people. At some point we have to stop looking for excuses and start listening to the people who are actually there.
> First it was the Epstein connection
Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
It doesn't have to be. I've known over a dozen people working at the FSF over the years, and they _all_ had the same stories about trying to avoid RMS as much as physically possible because of his behavior and how he treated people. At some point we have to stop looking for excuses and start listening to the people who are actually there.
> First it was the Epstein connection
Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
> start listening to the people who are actually there.
I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets.
> Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. In all of MIT, the only person you can trust not to have any sort of connection to Epstein would be rms, but yeah, let's blame him and the dead guy, and take it from there.
I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets.
> Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. In all of MIT, the only person you can trust not to have any sort of connection to Epstein would be rms, but yeah, let's blame him and the dead guy, and take it from there.
> and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection.
If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don't mind. Because Stallman _did_ say he believed that Minsky had sex with a 17 year old on a billionaire's small private island and saw nothing wrong with it, and Minsky _did_ host a conference on Epstein's island after Epstein's crimes became public.
> I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would...
I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences instead of venting to their friends and then trying to forget.
The two sides here are people who work at or with the FSF (or who have close friends who work at or with the FSF) and people whose only exposure is shit blogs that come up on google. And the people who work at or with the FSF are like "RMS is a nightmare for me or for a close friend of mine", and the people who google shit blogs are like "I don't find these shit blogs to be compelling enough to notice the fact that the people saying that RMS has been a nightmare are all the people who have to work with him". Everyone gets to pick their side though.
If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don't mind. Because Stallman _did_ say he believed that Minsky had sex with a 17 year old on a billionaire's small private island and saw nothing wrong with it, and Minsky _did_ host a conference on Epstein's island after Epstein's crimes became public.
> I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would...
I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences instead of venting to their friends and then trying to forget.
The two sides here are people who work at or with the FSF (or who have close friends who work at or with the FSF) and people whose only exposure is shit blogs that come up on google. And the people who work at or with the FSF are like "RMS is a nightmare for me or for a close friend of mine", and the people who google shit blogs are like "I don't find these shit blogs to be compelling enough to notice the fact that the people saying that RMS has been a nightmare are all the people who have to work with him". Everyone gets to pick their side though.
No, actually I would prefer facts instead of this incessant and tiring framing with laden and erroneous terms.
> I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences
And I think it's weird that most with personal grievances against rms can't be bothered to write anything but the shortest of anecdotal tweets and most with pleasant or neutral experiences take the time write long form articles including names, dates, locations, etc.
If one sets out to ruin someone's life one could at least put in some effort to convince those that are not automatically on your side.
> I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences
And I think it's weird that most with personal grievances against rms can't be bothered to write anything but the shortest of anecdotal tweets and most with pleasant or neutral experiences take the time write long form articles including names, dates, locations, etc.
If one sets out to ruin someone's life one could at least put in some effort to convince those that are not automatically on your side.
No it's not about that person. This isn't about RMS saying something that some of us disagree with and looking past it. It's much bigger than that. For example, RMS made the working environment at the FSF so bad that the staff unionized. The working environment is still bad (staff either burn out trying to make things better or get fired for some reason) but at least RMS can't fire people on a whim and the staff get bereavement leave (RMS was opposed to it) and cost of living pay adjustments (also opposed).
So in other words at the FSF workers are free to unionize like in the rest of the civilized World, while if you work at Amazon you have to pee in a bottle and be happy about it.
I think we should start a discussion about a simple fact: the World is huge, US is only a small part of it.
For example: RMS did not believe in providing raises — prior cost of living adjustments were a battle and not annual. RMS believed that if a precedent was created for increasing wages, the logical conclusion would be that employees would be paid infinity dollars and the FSF would go bankrupt.
That's unlawful in Italy to avoid salary discrimination where people in poorer areas (the South) are paid less for the same job.
It's considered a great victory by Italian huge worker unions.
Or this other one
RMS created non-safe spaces at both MIT & the FSF. When I was at the FSF, RMS had little to no empathy for the staff. The FSF was not a healthy, functional workplace. We formed a union to help protect ourselves from RMS — he controlled our pay, benefits, and workplace conditions.
Again, this is totally subjective.
It's a work place not a kindergarten, you don't like the place you leave, we are talking about software engineers not cleaning staff, they'd have a chance anywhere else.
this is simply this guy personally holding a grudge against RMS, but there's nothing objectively bad here.
You know what's really bad? that it happens at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple l, but you don't know because workers simply can't talk about it.
Low paid workers fear of losing their salary, high paid workers don't care about them and also don't want to lose their huge benefits and say screw them
What is terrifying is people thinking that knowing something is worse than not knowing because if you talk, it's bad for you.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/05/amazon-pr...
What is bad IMO is thinking that unions are inherently a bad thing, but I am glad they exist and I am member myself of one of them in Italy that has 5.5 million other members and I gladly pay monthly to be part of it,even though I rarely need them they offer free services and protection to all the workers.
If nobody has been fired, harrased or threatened for proposing to unionize, that's a great plus in my book that puts the FSF ahead of many other job places in the US.
For example: RMS did not believe in providing raises — prior cost of living adjustments were a battle and not annual. RMS believed that if a precedent was created for increasing wages, the logical conclusion would be that employees would be paid infinity dollars and the FSF would go bankrupt.
That's unlawful in Italy to avoid salary discrimination where people in poorer areas (the South) are paid less for the same job.
It's considered a great victory by Italian huge worker unions.
Or this other one
RMS created non-safe spaces at both MIT & the FSF. When I was at the FSF, RMS had little to no empathy for the staff. The FSF was not a healthy, functional workplace. We formed a union to help protect ourselves from RMS — he controlled our pay, benefits, and workplace conditions.
Again, this is totally subjective.
It's a work place not a kindergarten, you don't like the place you leave, we are talking about software engineers not cleaning staff, they'd have a chance anywhere else.
this is simply this guy personally holding a grudge against RMS, but there's nothing objectively bad here.
You know what's really bad? that it happens at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple l, but you don't know because workers simply can't talk about it.
Low paid workers fear of losing their salary, high paid workers don't care about them and also don't want to lose their huge benefits and say screw them
What is terrifying is people thinking that knowing something is worse than not knowing because if you talk, it's bad for you.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/05/amazon-pr...
What is bad IMO is thinking that unions are inherently a bad thing, but I am glad they exist and I am member myself of one of them in Italy that has 5.5 million other members and I gladly pay monthly to be part of it,even though I rarely need them they offer free services and protection to all the workers.
If nobody has been fired, harrased or threatened for proposing to unionize, that's a great plus in my book that puts the FSF ahead of many other job places in the US.
Bushnell is by no means the only person who has expressed such things.
ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
solosoyokaze(2)
It seems to me that the discourse was very deliberately focused on the Epstein-related comments by people who felt that'd be a good way to achieve the outcome they wanted. It's undoubtedly true that RMS is often rude and offensive, but this has long been widely known and publicly discussed, so a pressure campaign on those grounds would almost certainly have flopped.
It seems to me the discussion of his Epstein related comments encouraged other people to come forward with their own grievances. I don't think most people knew he defended adults having sex with children. Or he hit on much younger women at conferences. Or the FSF unionized because of him.
I really think they did. The first two were some of the only things I knew about RMS before the current controversy prompted me to learn more.
Only a handful of HN comments mentioned Stallman and pedophilia before the Epstein controversy.[1]
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Not to mention how badly he mismanaged the paid staff of the FSF which prompted them to unionize: https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1377079987950395393 I think, if anything, this is the strongest argument for why he should not be in a leadership position at the FSF.
"Did not treat employees well" is a great reason for someone to not be a boss, but unfortunately that's not why he's demonized.
This appears to be about events that are at least 15 years old, if not older?
Does sound like a pretty terrible manager. An unpaid volunteer position on the board doesn’t really seem like the position where these problems would happen again. And they weren’t the reason he got in hot water - that was all related to a media firestorm over Minsky/Epstein.
Does sound like a pretty terrible manager. An unpaid volunteer position on the board doesn’t really seem like the position where these problems would happen again. And they weren’t the reason he got in hot water - that was all related to a media firestorm over Minsky/Epstein.
> This appears to be about events that are at least 15 years old, if not older?
What would you consider an appropriate statute of limitations here?
What would you consider an appropriate statute of limitations here?
Statute of limitations is a concept of criminal law, since none of the described actions are criminal it wouldn’t apply directly.
I do find it questionable to dig up decades old actions that were apparently dealt with at the time by appropriately unionizing and fixing the situation, and say that means a person should never have even a volunteer job again.
I do find it questionable to dig up decades old actions that were apparently dealt with at the time by appropriately unionizing and fixing the situation, and say that means a person should never have even a volunteer job again.
RE: that twitter thread. Wow. That's absurdly bad. Especially given that I suspect any software person there could easily go get a much higher paying corporate job without much trouble.
I feel like a problem that plagues software worse than other industries is that BigTechCo can pay multiple times more than what I'll call "greater good" kinds of places like:
* government
* education, especially in high school
* software freedom / open source / communal / etc types of places
The one that I mourn the most is high school computer teachers. How many startups were started by people with only a year or so of college? How important is high school in choosing your career? How often is curiosity suppressed in high school when students try to go off the standard curriculum into material the teacher isn't familiar with, and think of how easy it is to do that in programming?
But I digress. I want to call out an example of this kind of "clearly, obviously for the common good" done right: Let's Encrypt. I think their software people make ~200k the last time I looked? Which is pretty dang good. I think the main thing it might lack is the kind of comp you get to via equity in a startup or public company. But given LE isn't that kind of company, I don't think you can fault them too much for that. So while I wish LE devs were paid like senior google devs, 200k gets you pretty damn far anywhere but NYC and San Francisco.
I feel like a problem that plagues software worse than other industries is that BigTechCo can pay multiple times more than what I'll call "greater good" kinds of places like:
* government
* education, especially in high school
* software freedom / open source / communal / etc types of places
The one that I mourn the most is high school computer teachers. How many startups were started by people with only a year or so of college? How important is high school in choosing your career? How often is curiosity suppressed in high school when students try to go off the standard curriculum into material the teacher isn't familiar with, and think of how easy it is to do that in programming?
But I digress. I want to call out an example of this kind of "clearly, obviously for the common good" done right: Let's Encrypt. I think their software people make ~200k the last time I looked? Which is pretty dang good. I think the main thing it might lack is the kind of comp you get to via equity in a startup or public company. But given LE isn't that kind of company, I don't think you can fault them too much for that. So while I wish LE devs were paid like senior google devs, 200k gets you pretty damn far anywhere but NYC and San Francisco.
one thing that bothers me in the context of cancel culture is that it seems people put the equal sign between the work/art someone produces and their ideas outside of that area.
Having wrong or plain stupid ideas does not mean you should die and all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste.
the bigger the target you attack, the better. right? what is your contribution to this world?
they are not even close to the same thing. look, RMS is a weirdo - everyone understands this. But most people are not even close to his level. This exceptionality has it’s drawbacks and its cost. Do you really think the FSF wants to deal with all this? What is the thought process behind reinstating RMS?
Having wrong or plain stupid ideas does not mean you should die and all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste.
the bigger the target you attack, the better. right? what is your contribution to this world?
they are not even close to the same thing. look, RMS is a weirdo - everyone understands this. But most people are not even close to his level. This exceptionality has it’s drawbacks and its cost. Do you really think the FSF wants to deal with all this? What is the thought process behind reinstating RMS?
RMS made these comments on work communication channels. You don't need to separate his ideas from his work because he himself put his ideas into his work environment and is now, correctly, paying the price for that.
I don't think CSAIL mailing list qualifies as "work" for rms, if "work" is FSF. Maybe "professional", but it's a university, so that sort of inquiry is 100% appropriate and should be protected.
solosoyokaze(1)
For a lot of people on that list it was work. And as for whether it was an appropriate for that discussion, the university in question has since unambiguously communicated that it wasn't.
Yeah, we're unfortunately entering a time of repression. I wonder how bad it will get.
The duty to resist it rests on our collective shoulders.
The duty to resist it rests on our collective shoulders.
> one thing that bothers me in the context of cancel culture is that it seems people put the equal sign between the work/art someone produces and their ideas outside of that area.
It often depends on what that outside work is; if RMS was a bad soundcloud rapper, I couldn't care less, it's inconsequential. If he was a known puppy puncher (which he isn't), I'd care a lot more, because that matters so much to me that I don't want to even remotely support anyone like that.
But in this case the complaints aren't "outside of that area", they're directly related to his role as a leader of the free software movement. His harassment of people directly hurts other people in the movement and people who potentially could join and help out. His musings on pedophilia are not simply unacceptable, they directly lead to people dismissing the movement because they fear joining a movement that abides such opinions. That they are both is part of what makes him unfit.
> all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste
I believe that the opportunity cost of keeping someone like RMS in a leadership position is higher than the accomplishments he achieves by that position. It's not simply a "cancellation" for some abstract moral reason, it's that he is _not worth it_ compared to what could have been achieved with the people he pushed away.
It often depends on what that outside work is; if RMS was a bad soundcloud rapper, I couldn't care less, it's inconsequential. If he was a known puppy puncher (which he isn't), I'd care a lot more, because that matters so much to me that I don't want to even remotely support anyone like that.
But in this case the complaints aren't "outside of that area", they're directly related to his role as a leader of the free software movement. His harassment of people directly hurts other people in the movement and people who potentially could join and help out. His musings on pedophilia are not simply unacceptable, they directly lead to people dismissing the movement because they fear joining a movement that abides such opinions. That they are both is part of what makes him unfit.
> all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste
I believe that the opportunity cost of keeping someone like RMS in a leadership position is higher than the accomplishments he achieves by that position. It's not simply a "cancellation" for some abstract moral reason, it's that he is _not worth it_ compared to what could have been achieved with the people he pushed away.
The argument isn't that he contributed nothing or that his contributions are worthless. Few people are advocating for burning everything he built to the ground simply to exorcise his lingering influence once he is gone or whatever and even fewer are doing so in good faith.
The argument is that by retaining his position he is actively alienating people. Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place? A hundred? A thousand? Where is the break-even point where it becomes more beneficial to keep a "genius" than being welcoming to new people who feel deeply uncomfortable around his behavior. And are you measuring him by what he has created in the past, or are you really considering his present value and likelihood of future contributions?
What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?
We like to tell stories about individual heroes, but if there is one recurring pattern in history it's that we're always standing on the shoulders of giants -- and even that imagery is misleading as it is not really just a handful of giants but armies of them, mutually supporting each other as they carry your weight.
The argument is that by retaining his position he is actively alienating people. Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place? A hundred? A thousand? Where is the break-even point where it becomes more beneficial to keep a "genius" than being welcoming to new people who feel deeply uncomfortable around his behavior. And are you measuring him by what he has created in the past, or are you really considering his present value and likelihood of future contributions?
What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?
We like to tell stories about individual heroes, but if there is one recurring pattern in history it's that we're always standing on the shoulders of giants -- and even that imagery is misleading as it is not really just a handful of giants but armies of them, mutually supporting each other as they carry your weight.
>Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place? A hundred? A thousand?
Unless the people at the FSF calling for his ousting are privately acknowledging that this is only because of the 'bottom line' (I don't think that's the case), then it becomes necessary to judge the actual reasoning of those hundred/thousands of people's decision to avoid RMS. Put simply, when is it okay to just implement a blind appeal to popularity?
Unless the people at the FSF calling for his ousting are privately acknowledging that this is only because of the 'bottom line' (I don't think that's the case), then it becomes necessary to judge the actual reasoning of those hundred/thousands of people's decision to avoid RMS. Put simply, when is it okay to just implement a blind appeal to popularity?
When I say "worth it", I'm not simply talking about finances.
He's a drain on the organization's reputation. People don't join the FSF because of the great working hours and phenomenal pay, they mostly join it for ideological reasons. We're not talking about retiring a beloved mascot because people don't like it anymore, we're talking about removing an individual holding a position of power who's actively keeping people away by being a sex pest.
He's a drain on the organization's reputation. People don't join the FSF because of the great working hours and phenomenal pay, they mostly join it for ideological reasons. We're not talking about retiring a beloved mascot because people don't like it anymore, we're talking about removing an individual holding a position of power who's actively keeping people away by being a sex pest.
But agnostic to this specific situation, you would acknowledge that there could be a situation in which the people kept away are morally confused to the point in which it's actually better to do without them from a moral (and long-term business) perspective.
"Having a CEO in favor of Data Privacy/Product Safety/Responsible Bank Lending will lead to thousands of potential employees avoiding our company!"
I'm sure you'll disagree with the particulars on the FSF case, but I'm just saying popularity is not the slam-dunk you're implying.
"Having a CEO in favor of Data Privacy/Product Safety/Responsible Bank Lending will lead to thousands of potential employees avoiding our company!"
I'm sure you'll disagree with the particulars on the FSF case, but I'm just saying popularity is not the slam-dunk you're implying.
hnbad(1)
> Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place?
There are no numbers here, so this is literally impossible to debate. You can say X, I can say Y, and it's all completely subjective.
I personally don't think that he's driving away people like people claim. RMS is involved with the gnu project, fsf, and free software (now renamed open source), but those projects are each far bigger than he is.
> What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?
Again, this is impossible to debate in good faith. There are infinite hypothetical alternate realities, what good does it do for any of us to muse over them? Maybe a "super genius" exists and is being held back by RMS' continued existence. Maybe not.
There are no numbers here, so this is literally impossible to debate. You can say X, I can say Y, and it's all completely subjective.
I personally don't think that he's driving away people like people claim. RMS is involved with the gnu project, fsf, and free software (now renamed open source), but those projects are each far bigger than he is.
> What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?
Again, this is impossible to debate in good faith. There are infinite hypothetical alternate realities, what good does it do for any of us to muse over them? Maybe a "super genius" exists and is being held back by RMS' continued existence. Maybe not.
Sure, but does any of that keep you from empathizing with the content of this letter?
Yeah, it does. In context, this letter, especially given it's posted to the FSF site and not, say, his personal website, is meant to justify electing him to the board and address the backlash against it, and I don't really have much patience for a letter addressing only one of the many complaints people have against allowing him a leadership role. It's dismissive of them.
He even continues to defend Minsky in this letter. It's not even an apology, it's just more of the same.
> He even continues to defend Minsky in this letter.
Honest question - is there a way in which someone could not immediately condemn Minsky without defending him?
Honest question - is there a way in which someone could not immediately condemn Minsky without defending him?
Say nothing. That's what a competent leader would do. No one wanted RMS's take on Minsky (or pedophilia in general, which he also offered up).
I'm very unclear on what general priciple you think RMS is violating with the Minsky comments. Is it that you should never defend someone accused of Bad Thing if you are a public figure ij channels that may be related to your work?
> Is it that you should never defend someone accused of Bad Thing if you are a public figure ij channels that may be related to your work?
That's a part of it (aside from general moral disgust). How does RMS defending an Epstein client help FOSS? It does not, and it detracts enormously.
That's a part of it (aside from general moral disgust). How does RMS defending an Epstein client help FOSS? It does not, and it detracts enormously.
Empathizing, no - through 4+ years of Donald Trump I am able to empathize quite well with abusers justifying their actions. I can imagine the sort of mental universe, of checks and balances, of personal expectations, which RMS's mind clearly does. The letter informs me more clearly of his aloofness and care-free attitude towards solving this dear problem.
I'll tell you what it does keep me from, accepting him as a leader.
The letter is evidence that the abuse will continue, amplified by the visibility and power of a leadership position.
> "I've learned something from this about how to be kind to people who have been hurt."
Implying that he will continue to hurt people. Of course all of us will ... however his kind of Hurt is the issue. He takes no responsibility for doing the hurting.
He provides no reason to this behavior stopping here and now, in this letter. He admits to having difficulty with social interaction, and yet he provides no remedy, no, "Here is how I will fix this going forward."
E.g. to solve this, he could use words which have first been edited by an assistant: he could only continue to talk publicly / talk with those whom he "leads" (which is a lot of people given his high-level role) through a filter.
This is just an example, however it is unrealistic. It's his job as an adult to lay out a plan to remedy this.
Linus had a turnaround moment, and wrote a convincing letter. Compare the two.
His remedy seems to suggest that he might manage to grow his empathetic skills, while retaining his boss-level. That is irresponsible, IMO.
This whole issue carries an insulting undertone, as the FSF Board deemed RMS worthy of being leader, when the (former!) supporters disagreed with that value-statement, given his insufficient skills.
I'll tell you what it does keep me from, accepting him as a leader.
The letter is evidence that the abuse will continue, amplified by the visibility and power of a leadership position.
> "I've learned something from this about how to be kind to people who have been hurt."
Implying that he will continue to hurt people. Of course all of us will ... however his kind of Hurt is the issue. He takes no responsibility for doing the hurting.
He provides no reason to this behavior stopping here and now, in this letter. He admits to having difficulty with social interaction, and yet he provides no remedy, no, "Here is how I will fix this going forward."
E.g. to solve this, he could use words which have first been edited by an assistant: he could only continue to talk publicly / talk with those whom he "leads" (which is a lot of people given his high-level role) through a filter.
This is just an example, however it is unrealistic. It's his job as an adult to lay out a plan to remedy this.
Linus had a turnaround moment, and wrote a convincing letter. Compare the two.
His remedy seems to suggest that he might manage to grow his empathetic skills, while retaining his boss-level. That is irresponsible, IMO.
This whole issue carries an insulting undertone, as the FSF Board deemed RMS worthy of being leader, when the (former!) supporters disagreed with that value-statement, given his insufficient skills.
A bunch of companies joined together and announced they didn't like Stallman. Tellingly, the left out the list of grievances, so we can just endlessly debate which 'issue' is the 'real' issue.
> FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything besides virtue signal to others about how pure and ethical they are
Then why do you care at all about the FSF in the first place? It sounds like you're here just to spread rumors and opinions in this case.
> FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything besides virtue signal to others about how pure and ethical they are
Then why do you care at all about the FSF in the first place? It sounds like you're here just to spread rumors and opinions in this case.
> Then why do you care at all about the FSF in the first place? It sounds like you're here just to spread rumors and opinions in this case.
I can't answer for the OP but it's clear that the FSF was a in a leadership position within the software world in the 1980s and 1990s. That position has slipped precipitously despite the increasing importance of the GNU software they developed in every aspect of modern computing. RMS, both in his behavior while representing the FSF at conferences and his (lack of) understanding of the modern computing environment[1], was/is very clearly part of the reason for that decline. I think the principles the FSF stands for are good and important, however without an organization to promote them they will continue to wither in the modern age and bringing back RMS will not help to reverse that trend.
[1] How can a man who spent years refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him possibly be positioned to develop policies to promote the principles of Free Software within the framework of the modern web?
I can't answer for the OP but it's clear that the FSF was a in a leadership position within the software world in the 1980s and 1990s. That position has slipped precipitously despite the increasing importance of the GNU software they developed in every aspect of modern computing. RMS, both in his behavior while representing the FSF at conferences and his (lack of) understanding of the modern computing environment[1], was/is very clearly part of the reason for that decline. I think the principles the FSF stands for are good and important, however without an organization to promote them they will continue to wither in the modern age and bringing back RMS will not help to reverse that trend.
[1] How can a man who spent years refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him possibly be positioned to develop policies to promote the principles of Free Software within the framework of the modern web?
That position has slipped precipitously... because corporations like IBM, Google and Microsoft have taken control of open source. They employ a significant number of contributors and enjoy control over a lot of the major projects.
> and his (lack of) understanding of the modern computing environment
How can you look at the "modern web" and claim that? It looks like he understands it perfectly well, even back in the day, but what can he do other than say it's not good for user freedom when faced with user-hostile corporations with literal billions at their disposal?
> refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him
That's silly. His workflow is obviously email based, which, given that he travels a lot and stays in places with possibly less than stellar connection, is perfectly practical. Get all your work on your device when you have a connection and work through them in batches until the next good connection.
How can you look at the "modern web" and claim that? It looks like he understands it perfectly well, even back in the day, but what can he do other than say it's not good for user freedom when faced with user-hostile corporations with literal billions at their disposal?
> refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him
That's silly. His workflow is obviously email based, which, given that he travels a lot and stays in places with possibly less than stellar connection, is perfectly practical. Get all your work on your device when you have a connection and work through them in batches until the next good connection.
> I can't answer for the OP but it's clear that the FSF was a in a leadership position
Who cares about 'leadership position' aren't people capable of deciding things for themselves?
> FSF stands for are good and important, however without an organization to promote them they will continue to wither in the modern age and bringing back RMS will not help to reverse that trend.
So, people can form something similar to the FSF then. Put out a better product, whatever it is the FSF does, and then people will care. Otherwise, your opinions don't matter.
Who cares about 'leadership position' aren't people capable of deciding things for themselves?
> FSF stands for are good and important, however without an organization to promote them they will continue to wither in the modern age and bringing back RMS will not help to reverse that trend.
So, people can form something similar to the FSF then. Put out a better product, whatever it is the FSF does, and then people will care. Otherwise, your opinions don't matter.
GNU project contributions generally require copyright attribution to the FSF. This gives them standing to enforce any GPL violations, but it also makes them rather hard to replace when it comes to GPL enforcement.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
Make your own GPL alternative if you don't approve of the FSF and how they conduct themselves. It's like saying Ford is in a leadership position, if you don't like their product, drive something else.
Have you never heard of the network effect? It would be extremely difficult to get users of GNU/GPL software to switch to alternatives after they're already made their choice.
So, because other people are unwilling to do the work themselves and want to consume the work of the FSF for free, that gives them power of the FSF to demand how they behave because of some nebulous idea of 'leadership?'
The FSF doesn't owe you anything, and they're only your leader if you choose to follow them.
The companies that have spoken out against Stallman represent 100's of billions of dollars in capital. It's pretty pathetic when you think about it.
The FSF doesn't owe you anything, and they're only your leader if you choose to follow them.
The companies that have spoken out against Stallman represent 100's of billions of dollars in capital. It's pretty pathetic when you think about it.
Leadership within a realm begets influence. The entire goal of the FSF as a political organization is to influence the software industry to follow the core principles of Free Software that it espouses. By failing to be in a leadership position, and failing to do things to (re)gain the position, the organization as a whole is failing. The fact that companies representing "100s of billions of dollars in capital" had to put out statements regarding RMS returning to the FSF should tell you just how much of a leadership position the FSF used to have and how much they are damaging it by continuing to associate themselves with RMS.
>and the fact that the FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything
What can the FSF do better, with or without RMS ? I honestly don't think there are too many good solutions. The parts that matter to FSF (i.e., free software at the hardware layer), are also the most challenging and for which there are no business incentives, political awareness, or will. Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.
What can the FSF do better, with or without RMS ? I honestly don't think there are too many good solutions. The parts that matter to FSF (i.e., free software at the hardware layer), are also the most challenging and for which there are no business incentives, political awareness, or will. Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.
[deleted]
Some examples: https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1379813168638091271
> Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.
Open source thriving is actually a loss for free software, in the view of the free software movement, because open source software can and does still restrict user freedoms.
> Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.
Open source thriving is actually a loss for free software, in the view of the free software movement, because open source software can and does still restrict user freedoms.
Foucault, along with most french leftist intellectuals go and write a public letter in support of pedophilia and not only are they not getting in trouble for it - many of them are the ideological forerunners to modern leftism.
It's not just cus of RMS saying the age of consent is wrong...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_...
It's not just cus of RMS saying the age of consent is wrong...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_...
Modern Americans seem to be very conflicted and in a need of a shrink.
On one hand, they seem to have this quasi genetic memory of things being an abomination unto the Lord[1], while on the other hand, it's not hip to be openly religious, so they won't openly mention the Lord[1], all the while maintaining their puritanic shackles and even have outrage at the people who don't have those shackles.
Just you wait until they realize what you wrote about Foucault and denounce any and all of his achievements ;-) It seems to be very trendy these days.
[1] The ironic bit, of course, is that the Scripture doesn't state what the age of consent should even be.
On one hand, they seem to have this quasi genetic memory of things being an abomination unto the Lord[1], while on the other hand, it's not hip to be openly religious, so they won't openly mention the Lord[1], all the while maintaining their puritanic shackles and even have outrage at the people who don't have those shackles.
Just you wait until they realize what you wrote about Foucault and denounce any and all of his achievements ;-) It seems to be very trendy these days.
[1] The ironic bit, of course, is that the Scripture doesn't state what the age of consent should even be.
This happened in 1977, and none of the people who signed it are public figures today, certainly not in the tech sphere. Academics who study philosophy and literature are well aware of the checkered past of the influential figures throughout history.
The implication that leftist thought is rooted in pedophilia is, I'm sure, intentional flamebait. I will just point out that, whether or not people are right to vilify Stallman, no one here is suggesting that we abandon the free software movement because one of its most prominent figures said unsavory things. So there is no logical inconsistency.
The implication that leftist thought is rooted in pedophilia is, I'm sure, intentional flamebait. I will just point out that, whether or not people are right to vilify Stallman, no one here is suggesting that we abandon the free software movement because one of its most prominent figures said unsavory things. So there is no logical inconsistency.
> This happened in 1977, and none of the people who signed it are public figures today, certainly not in the tech sphere.
Aren't Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard still big names and influences in postmodern thought (and the whole "woke" movement)?
Aren't Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard still big names and influences in postmodern thought (and the whole "woke" movement)?
"Woke" is just an insult these days. And few activists sit around discussing Derrida.
They are still huge figures, and some of those who signed this are still alive too.
None of those people should be on the FSF board either.
I did not even know about this stuff (but can now see what are perhaps the reasons why my comment elsewhere in the thread are being downvoted).
Is there a place I can quickly catch up on these events?
I also don't think that the foot skin eating thing is a non-starter. People are weird; I can live with that.
But the other stuff is obviously troubling.
Is there a place I can quickly catch up on these events?
I also don't think that the foot skin eating thing is a non-starter. People are weird; I can live with that.
But the other stuff is obviously troubling.
> Is there a place I can quickly catch up on these events?
Summary: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
Summary: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
To the OP: that article is extremely biased in favor of RMS and focuses extremely narrowly on the Epstein/Minsky e-mails. Unfortunately I do not know of a good collection of his other failings (outside of the Minsky e-mails) to provide as a counter.
> that article […] focuses extremely narrowly on the Epstein/Minsky e-mails
No, only about the top third of the article is that. The rest covers the various subsequent attacks and goes through their claims at length.
No, only about the top third of the article is that. The rest covers the various subsequent attacks and goes through their claims at length.
> the _other_ times he spoke out in implicit support of pedophilia,
His support for pedophilia was explicit (though in context it was actually support for “consensual” sex between adults and children, not support for mere pedophilia, which is an orientation, not an action.)
His support for pedophilia was explicit (though in context it was actually support for “consensual” sex between adults and children, not support for mere pedophilia, which is an orientation, not an action.)
And yet all we have documenting those are a few (anonymous) blog posts.
That's great, but the problem seems to be RMS's disruption of development activities. This doesn't change that. For example:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-01/msg00...
Imagine taking the time to publicly explain to an out-of-practice dev why some technical feature is needed, then being accused of a "pressure campaign" that requires the out-of-practice dev to consult privately, "with people I have confidence in."
Gnu devs have an impressive amount of patience and grace to put up with that. But I see a lot of other FOSS devs try to replicate RMS's unnecessarily aggressive rhetoric. They often shoot themselves in the foot with it, disrespecting and consequently losing valuable contributors who are otherwise aligned philosophically with the project in every way.
That kind of disruption is at odds with every value FOSS devs claim to hold-- meritocratic, decentralized, etc. Even Debian put the hammer down when an out-of-practice dev tried to use permissions to disrupt the work of a new dev. Nobody sane and self-respecting should put up with this kind of behavior.
Edit: clarification
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-01/msg00...
Imagine taking the time to publicly explain to an out-of-practice dev why some technical feature is needed, then being accused of a "pressure campaign" that requires the out-of-practice dev to consult privately, "with people I have confidence in."
Gnu devs have an impressive amount of patience and grace to put up with that. But I see a lot of other FOSS devs try to replicate RMS's unnecessarily aggressive rhetoric. They often shoot themselves in the foot with it, disrespecting and consequently losing valuable contributors who are otherwise aligned philosophically with the project in every way.
That kind of disruption is at odds with every value FOSS devs claim to hold-- meritocratic, decentralized, etc. Even Debian put the hammer down when an out-of-practice dev tried to use permissions to disrupt the work of a new dev. Nobody sane and self-respecting should put up with this kind of behavior.
Edit: clarification
Someone I know who works on pretty much singlehandedly on something that is on the frontpage of GCC said that he entered Stallman's bad books the moment he found out he had children.
GCC plugins were a stallman thing, LLVM was even offered to the FSF at one point IIRC. Is there anything competent he has done post-2000 or so?
GCC plugins were a stallman thing, LLVM was even offered to the FSF at one point IIRC. Is there anything competent he has done post-2000 or so?
> Is there anything competent he has done post-2000 or so?
While you may not care about it, GPLv3.
While you may not care about it, GPLv3.
That was sort of the opposite of competent:
- Because it was a new license, it necessarily resulted in license fragmentation, which is an ongoing headache for the free software community. It's worth doing if there's a serious need that outweighs the costs and you can guide the community towards dropping the old license, but....
- The Linux kernel had always been GPLv2 only and remained GPLv2-only, which meant that the most interesting GPL-licensed code on TiVos and similar devices was not subject to GPLv3.
- Embedded devices like TiVos generally want a small userspace. The most popular choice was Busybox, which announced that it was GPLv2-only.
- Also, Busybox turned out to be a reasonably straightforward product to replace, which hurt the ongoing aims of GPL enforcement - including regular old GPLv2 enforcement about simply getting source code at all: https://lwn.net/Articles/478249/
- The FSF moved its own projects to GPLv3 only, but that scared the largest surviving commercial UNIX vendor (Apple) enough that they remained on GPLv2-only versions, and eventually started sponsoring the development of permissively-licensed competitors to even reasonably difficult products to replace, such as LLVM and its ecosystem (lldb etc.) instead of GCC and its ecosystem, which are now technically on par with GCC, if not much more advanced. (Historically, one of the FSF's biggest successes at making inroads in the proprietary software world was getting Steve Jobs to use GCC and release the Objective-C frontend for it!)
- Because the FSF couldn't guide enough other major projects towards GPLv3-only, many brand-new GPL'd software projects continue to use "GPLv2 or later" to this day to work around license fragmentation (i.e. so they can share code with other GPLv2+ projects), meaning any additional strictness of GPLv3 is irrelevant in enforcement.
- Of the major issues around software freedom and digital autonomy today, approximately zero of them are TiVoization - and, as described above, that's not because GPLv3 was wildly successful in combating the threat, it's because it turned out not to be that pressing of a problem.
There is basically no leverage in GPLv3. Just about everything you'd want to do with free software today, you can do with GPLv2 or permissively-licensed works.
- Because it was a new license, it necessarily resulted in license fragmentation, which is an ongoing headache for the free software community. It's worth doing if there's a serious need that outweighs the costs and you can guide the community towards dropping the old license, but....
- The Linux kernel had always been GPLv2 only and remained GPLv2-only, which meant that the most interesting GPL-licensed code on TiVos and similar devices was not subject to GPLv3.
- Embedded devices like TiVos generally want a small userspace. The most popular choice was Busybox, which announced that it was GPLv2-only.
- Also, Busybox turned out to be a reasonably straightforward product to replace, which hurt the ongoing aims of GPL enforcement - including regular old GPLv2 enforcement about simply getting source code at all: https://lwn.net/Articles/478249/
- The FSF moved its own projects to GPLv3 only, but that scared the largest surviving commercial UNIX vendor (Apple) enough that they remained on GPLv2-only versions, and eventually started sponsoring the development of permissively-licensed competitors to even reasonably difficult products to replace, such as LLVM and its ecosystem (lldb etc.) instead of GCC and its ecosystem, which are now technically on par with GCC, if not much more advanced. (Historically, one of the FSF's biggest successes at making inroads in the proprietary software world was getting Steve Jobs to use GCC and release the Objective-C frontend for it!)
- Because the FSF couldn't guide enough other major projects towards GPLv3-only, many brand-new GPL'd software projects continue to use "GPLv2 or later" to this day to work around license fragmentation (i.e. so they can share code with other GPLv2+ projects), meaning any additional strictness of GPLv3 is irrelevant in enforcement.
- Of the major issues around software freedom and digital autonomy today, approximately zero of them are TiVoization - and, as described above, that's not because GPLv3 was wildly successful in combating the threat, it's because it turned out not to be that pressing of a problem.
There is basically no leverage in GPLv3. Just about everything you'd want to do with free software today, you can do with GPLv2 or permissively-licensed works.
> Of the major issues around software freedom and digital autonomy today, approximately zero of them are TiVoization
According to what? It seems to me tivoization is exactly one of the biggest issues facing users these days, especially in an IoT world, so how you can draw that conclusion (and the others) baffles the mind.
I think if you really want to understand GPLv3, you should listen to Eben Moglen more than RMS, because Eben has the ability to articulate in a way that RMS doesn't, and has given some very good speeches about not just GPLv3, but on the FOSS ecosystem as a whole.
Why is it that almost always I find the attacks against GPLv3 to be so lacking in substance? (for example, using an openly user hostile company like Apple as a reason for why it was bad just seems... like blatant pandering to me, as opposed to a real argument)
According to what? It seems to me tivoization is exactly one of the biggest issues facing users these days, especially in an IoT world, so how you can draw that conclusion (and the others) baffles the mind.
I think if you really want to understand GPLv3, you should listen to Eben Moglen more than RMS, because Eben has the ability to articulate in a way that RMS doesn't, and has given some very good speeches about not just GPLv3, but on the FOSS ecosystem as a whole.
Why is it that almost always I find the attacks against GPLv3 to be so lacking in substance? (for example, using an openly user hostile company like Apple as a reason for why it was bad just seems... like blatant pandering to me, as opposed to a real argument)
My entire point relies on Apple being an openly user-hostile company, yes! It was a great victory for the FSF that they were able to get Apple to release code and build on a free-software compiler, wasn't it?
And it's actually a little strange that they still release code and build on a different free-software compiler when not legally required to, despite being so user-hostile of a company, arguably quite a bit more user-hostile than they were in the past. There's a lot of discussion we ought to have about why they're contributing, whether that leverage was real, whether we could have predicted the rest of what they did, etc.
For IoT in particular, given that the processing power on-device is limited, I think it's pretty common for the serious risk to one's freedom/autonomy to be the fact that the data is being held and processed remotely and you have basically no idea over what happens with it, let alone any control. The GPLv3 does not include a requirement to release the source for the server component, so the best you can do is reimplement the entire effective functioning of the product from scratch. Also, because the GPLv3 has no such requirement and probably couldn't, that effectively is a motivation for the manufacturer to move as much processing server-side as possible.
(And at that point, you may have a better time building the device yourself or more practically buying it from a more friendly hardware manufacturer. Even for the TiVo, if you're going to have to implement a DVR yourself, the video capture card and the hard disk are the easiest part of it.)
I can see a limited use case for things like smart TVs to just sort of prevent them from communicating with the network at all, but a firewall can do that just fine - and it's a lot more practical for most people than hacking the device firmware.
My claim isn't that there's no use for freedom on consumer devices with on-board software - quite the opposite. My claim is that the specific thing the GPLv3 tried to save us from hasn't been the priority it was made out to be, and in the process it just made free software worse. I am totally open to a counterargument - is there a device you have where a) it does run some GPL (any version) code and b) there is some meaningful change you could make to the code it runs?
And it's actually a little strange that they still release code and build on a different free-software compiler when not legally required to, despite being so user-hostile of a company, arguably quite a bit more user-hostile than they were in the past. There's a lot of discussion we ought to have about why they're contributing, whether that leverage was real, whether we could have predicted the rest of what they did, etc.
For IoT in particular, given that the processing power on-device is limited, I think it's pretty common for the serious risk to one's freedom/autonomy to be the fact that the data is being held and processed remotely and you have basically no idea over what happens with it, let alone any control. The GPLv3 does not include a requirement to release the source for the server component, so the best you can do is reimplement the entire effective functioning of the product from scratch. Also, because the GPLv3 has no such requirement and probably couldn't, that effectively is a motivation for the manufacturer to move as much processing server-side as possible.
(And at that point, you may have a better time building the device yourself or more practically buying it from a more friendly hardware manufacturer. Even for the TiVo, if you're going to have to implement a DVR yourself, the video capture card and the hard disk are the easiest part of it.)
I can see a limited use case for things like smart TVs to just sort of prevent them from communicating with the network at all, but a firewall can do that just fine - and it's a lot more practical for most people than hacking the device firmware.
My claim isn't that there's no use for freedom on consumer devices with on-board software - quite the opposite. My claim is that the specific thing the GPLv3 tried to save us from hasn't been the priority it was made out to be, and in the process it just made free software worse. I am totally open to a counterargument - is there a device you have where a) it does run some GPL (any version) code and b) there is some meaningful change you could make to the code it runs?
Thank you for clarifying. I can see your reasoning now, taking a more practical approach, let me try to restate: by taking such an idealogical stance, the FSF lost what was a large base that existed for them previously? I understand that, but think there are lots of idealogical reasons why that kind of argument doesn't hold much sway with entities like the FSF and FOSS proponents. v2 had some very obvious issues, and v3 was intended to plug those holes. I would be interested in hearing not about v2, but in what kind of modifications to v3 you think could have still accomplished the idealogical mission while preventing the pragmatic loss?
"My claim is that the specific thing the GPLv3 tried to save us from hasn't been the priority it was made out to be, and in the process it just made free software worse. I am totally open to a counterargument - is there a device you have where a) it does run some GPL (any version) code and b) there is some meaningful change you could make to the code it runs?"
I would like to say that v3 addressed much more than just tivoization. Lets not overfocus on just that one point.
While I gather you are looking to get a response about IoT devices, I am a heavy proponent of gpl, and v3 specifically, and have worked for years to make almost my entire daily stack gpl. I don't have a apple-tv or a chromecast, nor even a smart tv. I have a linux box dedicated to my dumb tv. Tons of gplv3 on it I can modify at any time.
Now practically, on much bigger projects, I tend not to modify anything, but I have found that on smaller projects/repos I find I am much more willing and able to make a few modifications here and there, and have, mostly because by sticking to the do one thing well principle, I can then chain together tools in ways I want.
"I can see a limited use case for things like smart TVs to just sort of prevent them from communicating with the network at all, but a firewall can do that just fine"
This is a great example, because TV's being user hostile means that a firewall doesn't actually mean that much. For example, there are smart tv's found to connect to any random open wifi to transmit their user data... completely outside the owners knowledge (or firewall). Being able to actually control the devices you own is a key factor, and no amount of "well the user could or should do this" neverending arms-race fixes that, but fixing the fact that I cant root a smart tv would.
"My claim is that the specific thing the GPLv3 tried to save us from hasn't been the priority it was made out to be, and in the process it just made free software worse. I am totally open to a counterargument - is there a device you have where a) it does run some GPL (any version) code and b) there is some meaningful change you could make to the code it runs?"
I would like to say that v3 addressed much more than just tivoization. Lets not overfocus on just that one point.
While I gather you are looking to get a response about IoT devices, I am a heavy proponent of gpl, and v3 specifically, and have worked for years to make almost my entire daily stack gpl. I don't have a apple-tv or a chromecast, nor even a smart tv. I have a linux box dedicated to my dumb tv. Tons of gplv3 on it I can modify at any time.
Now practically, on much bigger projects, I tend not to modify anything, but I have found that on smaller projects/repos I find I am much more willing and able to make a few modifications here and there, and have, mostly because by sticking to the do one thing well principle, I can then chain together tools in ways I want.
"I can see a limited use case for things like smart TVs to just sort of prevent them from communicating with the network at all, but a firewall can do that just fine"
This is a great example, because TV's being user hostile means that a firewall doesn't actually mean that much. For example, there are smart tv's found to connect to any random open wifi to transmit their user data... completely outside the owners knowledge (or firewall). Being able to actually control the devices you own is a key factor, and no amount of "well the user could or should do this" neverending arms-race fixes that, but fixing the fact that I cant root a smart tv would.
If you take the assumption that the user device is actively user-hostile, there's a simpler approach: just add another microchip whose purpose is to run non-free code (or at least non-GPLv3 code) to report on what you're doing. You might not get the world's best networking stack by constraining yourself to non-GPL, but you can certainly get something that's enough to spy on the user. (Or, frankly, given the state of OpenSSL vs. GnuTLS, you probably actually want the non-GPL option :) ) Maybe the GPLv3 gets you the ability to ensure that you can modify the fancy UI on your TV because the best stack for that is GPLv3-based for some reason, but they'll just wire that to a non-GPL component to actually interface with the TV tuner, and then they'll know everything.
That's why I think the Apple case is relevant. Apple is a user-freedom-hostile company. (I actually think they're great at certain things like privacy that are necessary components of user freedom / digital autonomy, but certainly I wouldn't say I've particularly got autonomy over what happens on my iPhone.) And Apple (or well, their precursor, NeXT) decided to contribute to GCC because licensing compelled them to. And now Apple is deciding to contribute to LLVM with no compulsion, which is really kind of strange given that we thought we needed a licensing lever to make that happen, and also there seems to be no licensing lever we can possibly pull to get them to open up the actually interesting parts of any of their devices. The GPLv3 cannot possibly prevail against Apple, because they can and empirically did just reimplement things to avoid it.
This is the difficulty with licensing as a weapon, and it's something that the free software movement needs to seriously struggle with. Did the strategy make sense in the past and it no longer does? Did it never make sense, and we were just lucky? Are we not trying hard enough?
And to be clear, I'm not saying that he FSF needs to be pragmatic instead of ideological. The FSF always was pragmatic as a means towards being ideological. That's why it built GNU, an entire coherent OS that people could actually use, and didn't just write licenses. And that's why a lot of the early FSF focus was on redeveloping parts of UNIX that had no immediate free replacement, instead of writing free software in general.
Quoting RMS:
> As the GNU Project proceeded, and increasing numbers of system components were found or developed, eventually it became useful to make a list of the remaining gaps. We used it to recruit developers to write the missing pieces. This list became known as the GNU Task List. In addition to missing Unix components, we listed various other useful software and documentation projects that, we thought, a truly complete system ought to have.
I argue that the reason that RMS / the FSF had leverage over NeXT/Apple in the past was that it was ruthlessly pragmatic: they built an amazingly high-quality compiler compared to all the alternatives that existed at the time, such that the obvious thing for a for-profit, user-hostile company to do was to comply with the terms of the license. That pragmatism gained them an ideological victory.
The GPLv3 is very ideological, but it was only ideological. There wasn't a plan for how to actually get anyone (except the FSF themselves) to use it; there wasn't even a plan for how to get the actual GPL'd code running on actual TiVo devices to use it.
So - I don't know what modifications to v3 would have accomplished the ideological mission, and my tentative answer would be it couldn't be done. But that just brings up the question of why it couldn't be done - what could they have done to have enough power/influence to cause a mass switch to GPLv3?
Or was there some other way that they could have addressed the threat of user-hostile devices other than through writing a new software license?
That's why I think the Apple case is relevant. Apple is a user-freedom-hostile company. (I actually think they're great at certain things like privacy that are necessary components of user freedom / digital autonomy, but certainly I wouldn't say I've particularly got autonomy over what happens on my iPhone.) And Apple (or well, their precursor, NeXT) decided to contribute to GCC because licensing compelled them to. And now Apple is deciding to contribute to LLVM with no compulsion, which is really kind of strange given that we thought we needed a licensing lever to make that happen, and also there seems to be no licensing lever we can possibly pull to get them to open up the actually interesting parts of any of their devices. The GPLv3 cannot possibly prevail against Apple, because they can and empirically did just reimplement things to avoid it.
This is the difficulty with licensing as a weapon, and it's something that the free software movement needs to seriously struggle with. Did the strategy make sense in the past and it no longer does? Did it never make sense, and we were just lucky? Are we not trying hard enough?
And to be clear, I'm not saying that he FSF needs to be pragmatic instead of ideological. The FSF always was pragmatic as a means towards being ideological. That's why it built GNU, an entire coherent OS that people could actually use, and didn't just write licenses. And that's why a lot of the early FSF focus was on redeveloping parts of UNIX that had no immediate free replacement, instead of writing free software in general.
Quoting RMS:
> As the GNU Project proceeded, and increasing numbers of system components were found or developed, eventually it became useful to make a list of the remaining gaps. We used it to recruit developers to write the missing pieces. This list became known as the GNU Task List. In addition to missing Unix components, we listed various other useful software and documentation projects that, we thought, a truly complete system ought to have.
I argue that the reason that RMS / the FSF had leverage over NeXT/Apple in the past was that it was ruthlessly pragmatic: they built an amazingly high-quality compiler compared to all the alternatives that existed at the time, such that the obvious thing for a for-profit, user-hostile company to do was to comply with the terms of the license. That pragmatism gained them an ideological victory.
The GPLv3 is very ideological, but it was only ideological. There wasn't a plan for how to actually get anyone (except the FSF themselves) to use it; there wasn't even a plan for how to get the actual GPL'd code running on actual TiVo devices to use it.
So - I don't know what modifications to v3 would have accomplished the ideological mission, and my tentative answer would be it couldn't be done. But that just brings up the question of why it couldn't be done - what could they have done to have enough power/influence to cause a mass switch to GPLv3?
Or was there some other way that they could have addressed the threat of user-hostile devices other than through writing a new software license?
I don't have the time right now to respond, but I appreciate the depth of your response and you have given me a lot to think about. Cheers.
> - Of the major issues around software freedom and digital autonomy today, approximately zero of them are TiVoization - and, as described above, that's not because GPLv3 was wildly successful in combating the threat, it's because it turned out not to be that pressing of a problem.
I'm not really sure how you define "software freedom" or "digital autonomy". What I do know is that the majority of phones sold today run Android. Despite being technically "open source" and therefore free software, it is impossible in practice to replace the software due to "secure boot". This is what GPLv3 was intended to combat. I agree that it was a failure (it turns out corporations _really_ don't want us choosing our own software).
I'm not really sure how you define "software freedom" or "digital autonomy". What I do know is that the majority of phones sold today run Android. Despite being technically "open source" and therefore free software, it is impossible in practice to replace the software due to "secure boot". This is what GPLv3 was intended to combat. I agree that it was a failure (it turns out corporations _really_ don't want us choosing our own software).
> Someone I know who works on pretty much singlehandedly on something that is on the frontpage of GCC said that he entered Stallman's bad books the moment he found out he had children.
I know pretty much nothing about this Stallman person, does he actually dislike people with children?
I know pretty much nothing about this Stallman person, does he actually dislike people with children?
No.
"He was kind, attentive, and has a loving core. In simple language, he patiently explained to my son, then around 12, about the virtues of the GNU/Linux operating system"
https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...
He doesn't deem "having children" as some sort of special accomplishment though, which might rub some parents the wrong way.
"He was kind, attentive, and has a loving core. In simple language, he patiently explained to my son, then around 12, about the virtues of the GNU/Linux operating system"
https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...
He doesn't deem "having children" as some sort of special accomplishment though, which might rub some parents the wrong way.
I don't know whether he dislikes people with children, but the sin here is reproducing and thus hurting the planet or something like that.
Apparently this argument only subsided because it was noted that rms is not vegetarian
Apparently this argument only subsided because it was noted that rms is not vegetarian
It's important to keep in mind that RMS is a controversial figure, and a lot of people disagree with the FSF mission/philosophy. So, naturally, you're going to see a lot of baseless rumors from anonymous assholes on the internet.
> Stallman's bad books the moment he found out he had children.
This is how disparaging internet rumors are spread. You know someone that allegedly experienced this. Do you know them well enough to know the account is factual, or maybe they were just piling on because they had a bad experience with him and decided to frame him in this negative way because it was the 'cool' thing to do at the time?
Quit proliferating unsourced 3rd party accounts.
This is how disparaging internet rumors are spread. You know someone that allegedly experienced this. Do you know them well enough to know the account is factual, or maybe they were just piling on because they had a bad experience with him and decided to frame him in this negative way because it was the 'cool' thing to do at the time?
Quit proliferating unsourced 3rd party accounts.
I speak to them maybe every day and I have absolutely no reason to doubt him.
I would just say what the project was but he's basically the sole maintainer of the GNU side of it.
I would just say what the project was but he's basically the sole maintainer of the GNU side of it.
> That kind of disruption is at odds with every value FOSS devs claim to hold-- meritocratic, decentralized, etc.
You're mixing things here. :) meritocracy and decentralization are completely orthogonal to free software. They [edit: s/are/could be construed as a/] part of the open-source ethos as explored in CATB & explained by esr, not a sine-qua-non of free software.
You're mixing things here. :) meritocracy and decentralization are completely orthogonal to free software. They [edit: s/are/could be construed as a/] part of the open-source ethos as explored in CATB & explained by esr, not a sine-qua-non of free software.
The problem in this case is an unspoken governance model where a participant from decades ago showed up, made public accusations about the trustworthiness of the other participants, then declared a time schedule of his own choosing during which he would consult his own private council to judge the veracity of all the public arguments given.
Whatever we want to call that, and whatever the origins of the problem, it is a bad thing.
Edit: clarification
Whatever we want to call that, and whatever the origins of the problem, it is a bad thing.
Edit: clarification
Hey, I've been thinking and talking in another thread; I just made a comment that is completely relevant for this convo, too; the people in the discussion, as well as you, are looking at things from a different value framework as rms, the gnu project, and the fsf.
Here's the relevant comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26809646
We can agree the discussion could be handled better, and the accusations were unwarranted in context; I happily chalk that up to a misunderstanding (rms not seeing other people's lack of awareness of value framework incompatibility as a massive obstacle to conversation, instead assuming interlocutors had better information than they seemed to, in which case their behavior could have been construed as being in bad faith) - which implies 2015 rms should probably dial it down in the strength of his accusations among other adjustments. Communication is _not_ easy.
If a farmer and a forest ranger go into a patch of land, they will see the same scenery, but may have heated discussions about what to do with it. Unless they understand that one of them wants to produce food, and the other to protect the forest. And if one of them has decision-making power over the terrain, even if they have not been in there personally for a while - the argument about how what they want to do fits with the decision-maker's values needs to be made.
Of course, nobody is stopping the developers from going and doing the stuff they want to do in the first place, distributing it and, if the change is as technically important as it seems and the cards are played just right, even becoming the de-facto standard distribution of a piece of software; their changes just won't be merged into the main product for the foreseeable future.
We can agree the discussion could be handled better, and the accusations were unwarranted in context; I happily chalk that up to a misunderstanding (rms not seeing other people's lack of awareness of value framework incompatibility as a massive obstacle to conversation, instead assuming interlocutors had better information than they seemed to, in which case their behavior could have been construed as being in bad faith) - which implies 2015 rms should probably dial it down in the strength of his accusations among other adjustments. Communication is _not_ easy.
If a farmer and a forest ranger go into a patch of land, they will see the same scenery, but may have heated discussions about what to do with it. Unless they understand that one of them wants to produce food, and the other to protect the forest. And if one of them has decision-making power over the terrain, even if they have not been in there personally for a while - the argument about how what they want to do fits with the decision-maker's values needs to be made.
Of course, nobody is stopping the developers from going and doing the stuff they want to do in the first place, distributing it and, if the change is as technically important as it seems and the cards are played just right, even becoming the de-facto standard distribution of a piece of software; their changes just won't be merged into the main product for the foreseeable future.
Good lord, it's like talking to a brick wall. That thread is agonizing. Why do people still put up with that?
e: Also, it's hilarious to jump to Apr 2021 and see a thread titled "How to make Emacs popular again: Use monospaced fonts less".
e: Also, it's hilarious to jump to Apr 2021 and see a thread titled "How to make Emacs popular again: Use monospaced fonts less".
Well, at least they've wised up on one part: In the 2015 thread, most of them seemed to think Emacs was still popular.
(Personally, I thought it's used mostly for coding, so idunno if proportional fonts will be a popularity panacea.)
(Personally, I thought it's used mostly for coding, so idunno if proportional fonts will be a popularity panacea.)
[deleted]
What's the Debian occurrence you speak of?
"Later in life, I discovered that some people had negative reactions to my behavior, which I did not even know about. Tending to be direct and honest with my thoughts, I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women. This was not a choice: I didn't understand the problem enough to know which choices there were.
Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them. Please direct your criticism at me, not at the Free Software Foundation."
This is such a great argument for why he shouldn't be in a leadership position. These social skills are crucial in this role.
Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them. Please direct your criticism at me, not at the Free Software Foundation."
This is such a great argument for why he shouldn't be in a leadership position. These social skills are crucial in this role.
Exactly, there was no reason the FSF board couldn't message him to seek advice without him holding a leadership position. I don't care if people contribute, but positions of leadership should be conveyed to people who set a positive example.
I think there's a massive difference with RMS in that he excuses his actions, but doesn't show much intent or ability to change them. Another FOSS leader, Linus Torvalds, did a 180 when it became clear his behavior wasn't tolerable anymore, and I think Linus showed a level of leadership in that which RMS cannot.
I have my own issues, and I freely admit I probably don't belong in a leadership role. Stallman should do the same, and put himself in an advising-only capacity.
I think there's a massive difference with RMS in that he excuses his actions, but doesn't show much intent or ability to change them. Another FOSS leader, Linus Torvalds, did a 180 when it became clear his behavior wasn't tolerable anymore, and I think Linus showed a level of leadership in that which RMS cannot.
I have my own issues, and I freely admit I probably don't belong in a leadership role. Stallman should do the same, and put himself in an advising-only capacity.
>These social skills are crucial in this role.
Absolutely not. He is a theorist (if not the theorist) of Free Software. His role is paramount, he is literally the only human completely implacable regarding the degrees of freedom that should be guaranteed to algorithms and software.
The whole movement he started has as well spurred the Creative Commons movement, that is an application to the same principles more specifically to art.
Absolutely not. He is a theorist (if not the theorist) of Free Software. His role is paramount, he is literally the only human completely implacable regarding the degrees of freedom that should be guaranteed to algorithms and software.
The whole movement he started has as well spurred the Creative Commons movement, that is an application to the same principles more specifically to art.
So make him a consultant. Make him an advisor or something.
In most organizations, "theorists" aren't the people in charge, no matter how cogent their theories.
Even if it's true that he's the "only human" who's capable of doing the job the best possible (in which case, as some other commenters noted, what happens if he drops dead tomorrow??), that doesn't justify allowing someone with a long history of abusive management and no apparent understanding of what made it abusive back into a management position.
If his prior pedophilia apologism were the only issue with him, then this more-or-less-apology might at least passably address that. It does nothing for his terrible personality in general and his tendency to be ableist, racist, misogynist, and just overall an asshole, any of which should disqualify him from such a public leadership role in the software community.
Keeping him there does so much harm to the image of programmers and software developers of all kinds worldwide.
In most organizations, "theorists" aren't the people in charge, no matter how cogent their theories.
Even if it's true that he's the "only human" who's capable of doing the job the best possible (in which case, as some other commenters noted, what happens if he drops dead tomorrow??), that doesn't justify allowing someone with a long history of abusive management and no apparent understanding of what made it abusive back into a management position.
If his prior pedophilia apologism were the only issue with him, then this more-or-less-apology might at least passably address that. It does nothing for his terrible personality in general and his tendency to be ableist, racist, misogynist, and just overall an asshole, any of which should disqualify him from such a public leadership role in the software community.
Keeping him there does so much harm to the image of programmers and software developers of all kinds worldwide.
But what does that have to do with running the FSF day to day?
The FSF ran just fine under him before the Selam G. shitstorm. Sure, he irked a lot of people with his rigid stances. But considering how those stances are exactly what made him found the FSF in the first place, I don't see it as a big problem.
Several people who worked there don't agree it ran just fine.[1][2]
[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
[2] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1377079987950395393
[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
[2] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1377079987950395393
> he is literally the only human completely implacable
Not only is this assuredly false, but it's also the last thing we need in a position of leadership or even as a consultant.
Understanding nuances is paramount for these positions.
Not only is this assuredly false, but it's also the last thing we need in a position of leadership or even as a consultant.
Understanding nuances is paramount for these positions.
> it's also the last thing we need in a position of leadership or even as a consultant.
On technical matters, you are correct; on moral matters it's a different story.
Think about the moral tragedies of history; we didn't need someone saying "maybe we should not be so evil; let's be less evil - not stop, because that's disruptive and I am not an extremist, but maybe dial it down a bit?"
On moral battlegrounds we need someone capable of saying "we have to stop, and no price is too high to pay in order to stop being evil". Someone who is willing to pay the price themselves, and make the price as low as possible for anyone that wishes to follow through. Nothing less than that suffices; "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin", to say it poetically.
On technical matters, you are correct; on moral matters it's a different story.
Think about the moral tragedies of history; we didn't need someone saying "maybe we should not be so evil; let's be less evil - not stop, because that's disruptive and I am not an extremist, but maybe dial it down a bit?"
On moral battlegrounds we need someone capable of saying "we have to stop, and no price is too high to pay in order to stop being evil". Someone who is willing to pay the price themselves, and make the price as low as possible for anyone that wishes to follow through. Nothing less than that suffices; "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin", to say it poetically.
>On technical matters, you are correct; on moral matters it's a different story.
They are intertwined. His moral positions have done incredible damage to GCC at a technical level, and lost huge amounts of marketshare to LLVM as a direct result.
(Stallman thought that making the compiler more modular and extensible was totally unacceptable because it might be possible in theory to write proprietary tools that used GCC to dump intermediate representations. Thus preventing any FOSS tools from using GCC, also).
They are intertwined. His moral positions have done incredible damage to GCC at a technical level, and lost huge amounts of marketshare to LLVM as a direct result.
(Stallman thought that making the compiler more modular and extensible was totally unacceptable because it might be possible in theory to write proprietary tools that used GCC to dump intermediate representations. Thus preventing any FOSS tools from using GCC, also).
> His moral positions have done incredible damage to GCC at a technical level, and lost huge amounts of marketshare to LLVM as a direct result.
We can take this as a given for the purposes of the discussion.
> They are intertwined
But which has priority?
The main issue with this topic is that it's sometimes hard to see things from an angle we're so unaccustomed to.
The FSF and the GNU project are accidentally technical, morally-driven organizations. Technical superiority is never the argument for Free Software. You may be thinking about Open Source and mixing them up.
Try to see it from that point of view: if an organization exists to prevent "some evil" from happening and make it as easily as possible for "good people" to not commit and not be subjected to "that evil", it makes sense that the organization will sacrifice things that don't seem to make sense because they are avoiding as strongly as they can to make "some evil" easier to commit.
The goal is not market share; the goal is not technical superiority; the goal is not profit; the goal is to "not be evil", help others "not be evil" and not make it easier than it ever needs to be to "be evil".
Look at the "about" pages in the FSF & Gnu project websites and you will notice that it is not a bad choice for them to avoid doing some things "for market share" or "to remain competitive" when those clash with creating free software, making it easier to create free software, and make sure (within the realm of possibility) that their work cannot be used to facilitate the building of non-free software.
From the FSF's point of view loss of market share is an acceptable loss, if the alternative is "be evil". That is why, odd as it may seem, the FSF needs someone who does not compromise on that.
We can take this as a given for the purposes of the discussion.
> They are intertwined
But which has priority?
The main issue with this topic is that it's sometimes hard to see things from an angle we're so unaccustomed to.
The FSF and the GNU project are accidentally technical, morally-driven organizations. Technical superiority is never the argument for Free Software. You may be thinking about Open Source and mixing them up.
Try to see it from that point of view: if an organization exists to prevent "some evil" from happening and make it as easily as possible for "good people" to not commit and not be subjected to "that evil", it makes sense that the organization will sacrifice things that don't seem to make sense because they are avoiding as strongly as they can to make "some evil" easier to commit.
The goal is not market share; the goal is not technical superiority; the goal is not profit; the goal is to "not be evil", help others "not be evil" and not make it easier than it ever needs to be to "be evil".
Look at the "about" pages in the FSF & Gnu project websites and you will notice that it is not a bad choice for them to avoid doing some things "for market share" or "to remain competitive" when those clash with creating free software, making it easier to create free software, and make sure (within the realm of possibility) that their work cannot be used to facilitate the building of non-free software.
From the FSF's point of view loss of market share is an acceptable loss, if the alternative is "be evil". That is why, odd as it may seem, the FSF needs someone who does not compromise on that.
From a recent LWN article about a week ago.
> It restarted, however, when Poimboeuf came back a few days later with another idea for solving his problem: recompiling all plugins when the GCC version changes. This was refused by Yamada, who noted that Ubuntu does not have the GCC mismatch problem, so the problem seemed to be specific to Fedora. Linus Torvalds also disagreed with the proposal, but for another reason. For him there is no technical reason to recompile everything when the GCC version changes, but he expressed his concern on the usage and design of the GCC plugins in general. In a followup message he explained his reasoning in strong words:
>> The kernel gcc plugins _will_ go away eventually. They are an unmitigated disaster. They always have been. I'm sorry I ever merged that support. It's not only a maintenance nightmare, it's just a horrible thing and interface in the first place. It's literally BAD TECHNOLOGY.
> For Torvalds, the right way to implement such plugins is at the intermediate representation (IR) level, but GCC plugins were designed differently for non-technical reasons (out of fear for non-free plugins, which LWN covered back in 2008). People who are interested in plugins should use Clang, as it has a clean IR and easily allows adding similar checks at the IR level, he said.
So here we have Torvalds himself annoyed at GCC's ridiculous plugin architecture.
> It restarted, however, when Poimboeuf came back a few days later with another idea for solving his problem: recompiling all plugins when the GCC version changes. This was refused by Yamada, who noted that Ubuntu does not have the GCC mismatch problem, so the problem seemed to be specific to Fedora. Linus Torvalds also disagreed with the proposal, but for another reason. For him there is no technical reason to recompile everything when the GCC version changes, but he expressed his concern on the usage and design of the GCC plugins in general. In a followup message he explained his reasoning in strong words:
>> The kernel gcc plugins _will_ go away eventually. They are an unmitigated disaster. They always have been. I'm sorry I ever merged that support. It's not only a maintenance nightmare, it's just a horrible thing and interface in the first place. It's literally BAD TECHNOLOGY.
> For Torvalds, the right way to implement such plugins is at the intermediate representation (IR) level, but GCC plugins were designed differently for non-technical reasons (out of fear for non-free plugins, which LWN covered back in 2008). People who are interested in plugins should use Clang, as it has a clean IR and easily allows adding similar checks at the IR level, he said.
So here we have Torvalds himself annoyed at GCC's ridiculous plugin architecture.
And that's good and well - that's the way things are done: every project strives for their goal as well as they can.
I am very emphatically not making any statements about the technical aspects of gnu software.
The FSF is not the same as the gnu project, even if they share a lot of values - since they're being used mostly interchangeably in this post, let's roll 'em into one.
Whether someone is good or not for an organization can't be evaluated against arbitrary values: they evaluation needs to be made against the organization's values and their current state.
It's the same issue as when people were complaining about the AST not being available to make emacs _customizable_ into a better C++ IDE. Before even thinking about the technical merits of the solution, the questions that need to be answered unequivocally look like: "Are we making it easier to create non-free software from our work if we do this?" or "Are we eliminating leverage that incentivizes people to write free software in this are?"
From the FSF's standpoint, The crucial questions like "Are we enabling amazing software?" or "Are we going to gain market share from this?" are _secondary_.
And much of people's teeth-grinding is because they don't understand that; at least in the AST discussion I noticed that people arguing for the AST didn't appear to see that their priorities weren't the same as the gnu project's, and rms seems to not have noticed the discrepancy (or attributed it to plausible malice) and made some very strong accusations to people who just weren't arguing their side from the appropriate value framework. Appropriate because gcc is a gnu project, therefore its roadmap is decided according to gnu's values.
If you can't see this, you can't understand that some features, desirable as they could be, should not be (from their standpoint) implemented; from their standpoint, pursuit of technical excellence, usefulness, market share, beauty - any other feature that a software project may have - is subordinated to the value of software freedom.
You may or may not agree with that, and that's OK; but an org that has that kind of value framework sure needs someone - not rms specifically, mind you - who shares it, or at least understands it thoroughly and can commit to making organizational decisions based wholly on that value structure.
I am very emphatically not making any statements about the technical aspects of gnu software.
The FSF is not the same as the gnu project, even if they share a lot of values - since they're being used mostly interchangeably in this post, let's roll 'em into one.
Whether someone is good or not for an organization can't be evaluated against arbitrary values: they evaluation needs to be made against the organization's values and their current state.
It's the same issue as when people were complaining about the AST not being available to make emacs _customizable_ into a better C++ IDE. Before even thinking about the technical merits of the solution, the questions that need to be answered unequivocally look like: "Are we making it easier to create non-free software from our work if we do this?" or "Are we eliminating leverage that incentivizes people to write free software in this are?"
From the FSF's standpoint, The crucial questions like "Are we enabling amazing software?" or "Are we going to gain market share from this?" are _secondary_.
And much of people's teeth-grinding is because they don't understand that; at least in the AST discussion I noticed that people arguing for the AST didn't appear to see that their priorities weren't the same as the gnu project's, and rms seems to not have noticed the discrepancy (or attributed it to plausible malice) and made some very strong accusations to people who just weren't arguing their side from the appropriate value framework. Appropriate because gcc is a gnu project, therefore its roadmap is decided according to gnu's values.
If you can't see this, you can't understand that some features, desirable as they could be, should not be (from their standpoint) implemented; from their standpoint, pursuit of technical excellence, usefulness, market share, beauty - any other feature that a software project may have - is subordinated to the value of software freedom.
You may or may not agree with that, and that's OK; but an org that has that kind of value framework sure needs someone - not rms specifically, mind you - who shares it, or at least understands it thoroughly and can commit to making organizational decisions based wholly on that value structure.
>The goal is not market share
Market share is absolutely a goal, even if it's only a part of the broader goal. GCC used to have significant leverage to advance free software, and now they have almost none.
>From the FSF's point of view loss of market share is an acceptable loss, if the alternative is "be evil". That is why, odd as it may seem, the FSF needs someone who does not compromise on that.
But it's not. Go look through some of the mailing list threads about LLVM, the whining is nearly unbearable. Despite LLVM having been offered to GNU in the mid 2000s (yes the whole thing, even extending to copyright assignment) and GNU having turned it down due largely to their opposition to modularity.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...
Market share is absolutely a goal, even if it's only a part of the broader goal. GCC used to have significant leverage to advance free software, and now they have almost none.
>From the FSF's point of view loss of market share is an acceptable loss, if the alternative is "be evil". That is why, odd as it may seem, the FSF needs someone who does not compromise on that.
But it's not. Go look through some of the mailing list threads about LLVM, the whining is nearly unbearable. Despite LLVM having been offered to GNU in the mid 2000s (yes the whole thing, even extending to copyright assignment) and GNU having turned it down due largely to their opposition to modularity.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...
>he is literally the only human completely implacable regarding the degrees of freedom that should be guaranteed to algorithms and software.
So he's the Emperor from W40K? Got it.
/s
So he's the Emperor from W40K? Got it.
/s
I agree rms is unfit to be a leader, but as a member of the FSF board he is fit to give his opinion on what GPLv4 should be if it ever gets released. I'm trust FSF to do the right thing on "or later" licenses if rms is onboard, but when I see Red Hat removing funding to get him out of the board, well, this give me pause.
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richa...
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richa...
Why would Red Hat want to be associated with a group that quietly reinstates him? The board that did it should also go.
If you look at the FSF's 990, you will see that the Red Hat contribution amounted to about $7000 USD a year. It was a really negligible amount.
So why did they think they had any leverage?
>These social skills are crucial in this role.
For better or worse, a huge number of very successful leaders have had problems with losing their temper. Not that we should idolize poor anger control, of course.
For better or worse, a huge number of very successful leaders have had problems with losing their temper. Not that we should idolize poor anger control, of course.
So people without social skills can't not be in leadership positions?
Same reason we keep people without technical skills out of technical roles. Being able to understand, working with, organize, inspire and influence people is at the core of being a leader.
so why's Elon Musk still there? /s
Jocking aside, perfection is enemy of the good.
Nobody is all those things, all the time, consistently, over a life time.
Being a leader in the real World is mostly about being in the political position of influencing the decision of the entity you lead, being it a small team of developers, the local sports team or a corporation.
Look at Steve Jobs, he was capable of being a terrible human being, but was also able to put a lot of money in investors' pockets and so they kept him.
Also, having no technical skill has never stopped anybody from being involved in technical roles. They simply end up working where the bar is lower or were management doesn't care.
If what you say was true, posts like this would not exist.
https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/17/confessions-of-an-unreal-e...
Jocking aside, perfection is enemy of the good.
Nobody is all those things, all the time, consistently, over a life time.
Being a leader in the real World is mostly about being in the political position of influencing the decision of the entity you lead, being it a small team of developers, the local sports team or a corporation.
Look at Steve Jobs, he was capable of being a terrible human being, but was also able to put a lot of money in investors' pockets and so they kept him.
Also, having no technical skill has never stopped anybody from being involved in technical roles. They simply end up working where the bar is lower or were management doesn't care.
If what you say was true, posts like this would not exist.
https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/17/confessions-of-an-unreal-e...
This comment section has devolved into another episode of "Hackernews attempts to justify the pointless character assassination of RMS by scraping the bottom of the barrel for half-assed reasons to be outraged"
It kind of misses the point it was never just about Minsky and Epstein.
> I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women. This was not a choice: I didn't understand the problem enough to know which choices there were.
Did anyone explain him that he downplayed the role of women in the GNU project? Janis Johnson, Sandra Loosemore, and Dorit Nuzman, to name a few, all did extraordinary work. Did he ever correct his statements about no women volunteering to work on GCC? Did he even read the author lists?
Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate? I'm pretty sure someone must have done that and, if not, he must have read the account of one young girl about how she felt. The fact he did that routine for years indicates he didn't listen or didn't care enough to change. And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
I am very sure he now has been informed his behaviour is unacceptable. Is he doing anything to change that? That he doesn't have the innate wiring to recognise those subtle cues makes it more necessary for him to listen and take action on his behaviour because he is seen as the person behind the FSF and his actions and opinions reflect on the entire community.
All these are clear indications he, and the FSF board, don't see any of these as problems and that, sadly, makes them unfit to lead the Free Software community.
> I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women. This was not a choice: I didn't understand the problem enough to know which choices there were.
Did anyone explain him that he downplayed the role of women in the GNU project? Janis Johnson, Sandra Loosemore, and Dorit Nuzman, to name a few, all did extraordinary work. Did he ever correct his statements about no women volunteering to work on GCC? Did he even read the author lists?
Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate? I'm pretty sure someone must have done that and, if not, he must have read the account of one young girl about how she felt. The fact he did that routine for years indicates he didn't listen or didn't care enough to change. And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
I am very sure he now has been informed his behaviour is unacceptable. Is he doing anything to change that? That he doesn't have the innate wiring to recognise those subtle cues makes it more necessary for him to listen and take action on his behaviour because he is seen as the person behind the FSF and his actions and opinions reflect on the entire community.
All these are clear indications he, and the FSF board, don't see any of these as problems and that, sadly, makes them unfit to lead the Free Software community.
> Did he ever correct his statements about no women volunteering to work on GCC?
He wasn't aware of women working on GCC. There's nothing to correct. I'm not aware of women working on GCC. GNU has thousands of people working on it, he's not aware of most of them. So much criticism of him is taking his comments out of context and misrepresenting them, including so many things that are just complete fabrications that it makes it hard to actually understand what "real" problems there are.
> Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate?
Yes, and he agreed and stopped.
> And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
K. You totally lost me there. Ever been to a porn website?
He wasn't aware of women working on GCC. There's nothing to correct. I'm not aware of women working on GCC. GNU has thousands of people working on it, he's not aware of most of them. So much criticism of him is taking his comments out of context and misrepresenting them, including so many things that are just complete fabrications that it makes it hard to actually understand what "real" problems there are.
> Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate?
Yes, and he agreed and stopped.
> And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
K. You totally lost me there. Ever been to a porn website?
> And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
As a father of daughters this stuff is really skeevy to me. But as for “normal,” society has a ways to improve. Remember that Britney Spears became super popular at 16 and 17 and had many fans who were not kids. The first time I saw “Hit Me Baby One More Time” I was in Best Buy and it was showing on the 100 TVs and I remember thinking “What the fuck is this, how old is that poor girl?” And the store, as typical for BestBuy, was full of like 99% adult males.
As a father of daughters this stuff is really skeevy to me. But as for “normal,” society has a ways to improve. Remember that Britney Spears became super popular at 16 and 17 and had many fans who were not kids. The first time I saw “Hit Me Baby One More Time” I was in Best Buy and it was showing on the 100 TVs and I remember thinking “What the fuck is this, how old is that poor girl?” And the store, as typical for BestBuy, was full of like 99% adult males.
>He wasn't aware of women working on GCC. There's nothing to correct. I'm not aware of women working on GCC.
....
>Sandra Loosemore is the lead author of the GNU Library Reference Manual;[3] RMS is listed as her co-author.
....
>Sandra Loosemore is the lead author of the GNU Library Reference Manual;[3] RMS is listed as her co-author.
I presume that he knew that she contributed to the glibc manual but not to the GCC. Why not ask him?
Several other women had contributed to GCC including being the official maintainers of pieces of it.
I am aware of it. r3856283 and RMS weren't. Is this that bad?
He is the public face of the FSF. It's his job to be aware of that.
>And no, it's not normal for adults to be sexually attracted to teens.
~1 million years of human history disagrees with your statement.
~1 million years of human history disagrees with your statement.
>It kind of misses the point it was never just about Minsky and Epstein.
This was how it started and this was also what most news reported on so I do not believe that it misses the point.
>Did anyone explain him that he downplayed the role of women in the GNU project?
Did you ask him?
>Did he ever correct his statements about no women volunteering to work on GCC? Did he even read the author lists?
Did you ask him?
>Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate?
He changed it after someone complained about it.
>That he doesn't have the innate wiring to recognise those subtle cues makes it more necessary for him to listen and take action on his behaviour because he is seen as the person behind the FSF and his actions and opinions reflect on the entire community.
This is a very ableist/sanist view. I would argue that it is the neurotypicals that should put the extra effort to be more explicit and not assume stuff.
This was how it started and this was also what most news reported on so I do not believe that it misses the point.
>Did anyone explain him that he downplayed the role of women in the GNU project?
Did you ask him?
>Did he ever correct his statements about no women volunteering to work on GCC? Did he even read the author lists?
Did you ask him?
>Did anyone ever tell him the Emacs virgins thing is very inappropriate?
He changed it after someone complained about it.
>That he doesn't have the innate wiring to recognise those subtle cues makes it more necessary for him to listen and take action on his behaviour because he is seen as the person behind the FSF and his actions and opinions reflect on the entire community.
This is a very ableist/sanist view. I would argue that it is the neurotypicals that should put the extra effort to be more explicit and not assume stuff.
This is really the crux of it. His "apology" boils down to "I'm on the spectrum, I'm not good with people stuff". Which would be fine, except what he did was a recurring theme throughout his career and belied sexist and misogynist attitudes. Maybe some people egged him on, but he chose to ignore the people who told him no and those who told him it made them uncomfortable or that it was abusive.
This isn't about not understanding social cues or lacking intuitive empathy, this is about actively choosing to ignore victims telling you what you're doing to them because your position allows you to get away with it.
This isn't the first time I've seen autism (or the implication thereof) being used to reframe gross sexual misconduct as naïve ignorance and it's simply disgusting and insulting towards other autistics who can't read emotions and are socially awkward but understand consent.
What he did went well beyond "locker room" jokes like the Emacs virgins thing or "tonedeaf" postulating about the age of consent. The reason he didn't understand that it was wrong wasn't that he's bad at social cues, it's that he didn't think of women as human beings.
This isn't about not understanding social cues or lacking intuitive empathy, this is about actively choosing to ignore victims telling you what you're doing to them because your position allows you to get away with it.
This isn't the first time I've seen autism (or the implication thereof) being used to reframe gross sexual misconduct as naïve ignorance and it's simply disgusting and insulting towards other autistics who can't read emotions and are socially awkward but understand consent.
What he did went well beyond "locker room" jokes like the Emacs virgins thing or "tonedeaf" postulating about the age of consent. The reason he didn't understand that it was wrong wasn't that he's bad at social cues, it's that he didn't think of women as human beings.
>The reason he didn't understand that it was wrong wasn't that he's bad at social cues, it's that he didn't think of women as human beings.
This is still downstream of his autism. One of the common attributes of people on the spectrum is that they struggle immensely in terms of having a theory of mind of other individuals. Basically all human interaction and interpretation of that interaction is grounded in self-reference. TLDR as a default he (probably) has a hard time thinking of anyone other than himself as "human beings" in the way you mean it. I imagine w/ women it's doubly hard for RMS, because he has no experience as a woman that he could bring to the table.
This is still downstream of his autism. One of the common attributes of people on the spectrum is that they struggle immensely in terms of having a theory of mind of other individuals. Basically all human interaction and interpretation of that interaction is grounded in self-reference. TLDR as a default he (probably) has a hard time thinking of anyone other than himself as "human beings" in the way you mean it. I imagine w/ women it's doubly hard for RMS, because he has no experience as a woman that he could bring to the table.
> This is still downstream of his autism
I understand it is harder for him than for other people to be nice to others, but he is intelligent enough to work around his own limitations. If he's not, then, again, he will hurt a lot of people and should reconsider his role with the FSF.
I understand it is harder for him than for other people to be nice to others, but he is intelligent enough to work around his own limitations. If he's not, then, again, he will hurt a lot of people and should reconsider his role with the FSF.
I guess the pathological victimhood complex underlying cancel culture just doesn't apply to the neurodivergent. sigh
I think message is genuine, and sympathize with his stand. His work on free software has been invaluable and shaped the software world in a good way. To paint the whole person as a "bad guy" ("terrible person") in the context of the latest developments always seemed off to me.
However, usually apologies in this context backfire. Everything that you say about this can and will be used against you. This has happened to various people before, who (I believe) have been well-meaning but offended the wrong people.
I sincerely hope the best for him, but I don't expect this apology/elaboration will help him.
However, usually apologies in this context backfire. Everything that you say about this can and will be used against you. This has happened to various people before, who (I believe) have been well-meaning but offended the wrong people.
I sincerely hope the best for him, but I don't expect this apology/elaboration will help him.
>However, usually apologies in this context backfire.
As pointed out by other commenters, this is more of a defense, or an explanation, than it is an apology.
As pointed out by other commenters, this is more of a defense, or an explanation, than it is an apology.
So technically it is an apology but in the other sense of the word :)
A defense is not the most common definition of apology in modern usage, but it is the most historical meaning of the word, and most aligned with its Greek etymology. This letter is very much a hybrid of both a defense and a mea culpa, the two modern usages of apology. He acknowledges some shortcomings which were partially responsible for him being criticized, but also explicitly rejects the accusations that he believes were unfounded.
He didn’t apologize authentically. He might not be capable of it. And... if he did it doesn’t at all follow that his apology would be accepted. It is neither timely, nor adequately sincere and it doesn’t indicate that he is taking appropriate actions to atone. This statement is as self countered and RMS centering as his actions were. I suspect he isn’t capable of change without intervention and a lot of therapy, neither of which have been indicated here. Note: I’ve directly witnessed and dealt with RMS’s awful behavior towards women twice in my career.
It does not matter one bit if contemporary audiences react as you predict. His statements, and that of his accusers, are all on the record.
I suspect RMS is made of sterner stuff, given his track record, and while no doubt these events must have exacted a psychological toll (after all, he is a human being) he must also be aware that there remain today many of us who deeply appreciate his principled positions regarding matters that affect us all.
And one remains hopeful that future generations that are afforded the necessary distance from conflated matters that cloud contemporary judgment will reach a more balanced conclusion and give the man his due credit.
I suspect RMS is made of sterner stuff, given his track record, and while no doubt these events must have exacted a psychological toll (after all, he is a human being) he must also be aware that there remain today many of us who deeply appreciate his principled positions regarding matters that affect us all.
And one remains hopeful that future generations that are afforded the necessary distance from conflated matters that cloud contemporary judgment will reach a more balanced conclusion and give the man his due credit.
sneak(1)
People keep focusing on the Minsky thing, but if Stallman hadn't spent the last 40 years being a creep (the "emacs virgin" thing), being a creep ('tender embraces'), being abusive (the FSF unionized to protect themselves from him), being abusive (https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1174044770546659329), being abusive (https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374460763910201350), being a jerk ("These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of"), then he might have been able to weather the storm a little better.
This isn't a 'oh, he said one thing one time about one person' situation, this is instead a lifetime of behavior that for anybody else would have had consequences long ago.
This isn't a 'oh, he said one thing one time about one person' situation, this is instead a lifetime of behavior that for anybody else would have had consequences long ago.
but because work done in the past seems to be more important and can overshadow everything like nothing happened.
>the "emacs virgin" thing
He stopped doing it once people told him that it made others uncomfortable.
>being a creep ('tender embraces')
In the business cards that he gave out to people of any gender. This is not really a creepy thing to do.
>being abusive (https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1174044770546659329)
Miguel de Icaza is not a trustworthy person, especially due to the way that he betrayed the community. I am curious though, did he just sat there being passive-aggressive or did he tell rms to leave? Since nobody seems to have asked him about what actually happened I am going to.
>https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374460763910201350
I will also ask him about this because I am curious.
>being a jerk ("These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of"),
Does not seem like a jerk thing to do.
>This isn't a 'oh, he said one thing one time about one person' situation, this is instead a lifetime of behavior that for anybody else would have had consequences long ago.
It would be great if the ones organizing harassment campaigns against him also agreed with you. So far they have been focusing on spreading lies about him (such as about epstein, the mattress, or his opinions) rather than actual repeated abuse by him after people expressed their dislike for it.
He stopped doing it once people told him that it made others uncomfortable.
>being a creep ('tender embraces')
In the business cards that he gave out to people of any gender. This is not really a creepy thing to do.
>being abusive (https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1174044770546659329)
Miguel de Icaza is not a trustworthy person, especially due to the way that he betrayed the community. I am curious though, did he just sat there being passive-aggressive or did he tell rms to leave? Since nobody seems to have asked him about what actually happened I am going to.
>https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374460763910201350
I will also ask him about this because I am curious.
>being a jerk ("These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of"),
Does not seem like a jerk thing to do.
>This isn't a 'oh, he said one thing one time about one person' situation, this is instead a lifetime of behavior that for anybody else would have had consequences long ago.
It would be great if the ones organizing harassment campaigns against him also agreed with you. So far they have been focusing on spreading lies about him (such as about epstein, the mattress, or his opinions) rather than actual repeated abuse by him after people expressed their dislike for it.
Short and to the point. I like an apology that doesn't read like an essay. The more they ramble on the less genuine they feel.
(I still don't believe this apology should have been considered necessary though)
(I still don't believe this apology should have been considered necessary though)
It reads as a non-apology.
It reads as "I'm sorry my own ways made you feel offended". The right thing to do would be to say "I'm sorry my actions offended you and I will not do that anymore".
It'd have been that easy, really. He just doesn't seem to understand that on any level.
It reads as "I'm sorry my own ways made you feel offended". The right thing to do would be to say "I'm sorry my actions offended you and I will not do that anymore".
It'd have been that easy, really. He just doesn't seem to understand that on any level.
He certainly doesn't sound like he intends to change or work to change.
That is an odd take on a message that stresses how he has changed in the past and how he hopes to change from this as well.
Do we have any concrete evidence he has changed enough to be a viable front figure for the Free Software Movement?
He did at least changed[0] his opinion on things he said in 2003 about "willful" sex between child and adult after talking to medical experts.
Don't know why it took him so long, but it's an indication that he is willing to change his views in conversation.
Still think that reinstating him at FSF was net negative for free software movement
[0] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
Still think that reinstating him at FSF was net negative for free software movement
[0] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
I believe him, you might not. In that case you might want to give him a chance, because you are a decent person, especially since he has been through a lot the last 18 months, and a lot of it was unjust.
I want to give him a second chance, but I'd like him to demonstrate this new ability to change before taking it at face value.
He is kind of saying exactly and literally this. I mean that this is exactly what is written in the text. Literally.
No, it reads as:
> Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
This: > Some people could cope with this;
means: "some people could take my shit and were not hurt"
This: > others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
means: "others could not take my shit and were actually hurt. I apologize to each of them."
You won't let the poor bastard find peace, right?
> Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
This: > Some people could cope with this;
means: "some people could take my shit and were not hurt"
This: > others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
means: "others could not take my shit and were actually hurt. I apologize to each of them."
You won't let the poor bastard find peace, right?
[deleted]
The constant mischaracterization of what he really meant, by reposting the same misquotes of his emails, was really shameful for a lot of 'journalists'.
Sadly in recent years a new generation of "activist journalism" has taken hold that favor stories over facts
I'm gonna drop this again where ACLU's former president Nadine Strossen shares her view which is more sophisticated and thought through than mine is anyways - https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web
Leah Rowe's article might also be of interest: https://libreboot.org/news/rms.html
Thanks for these links!
I found this page that summarise the whole thing https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/
a companion to the "Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman" one minute later
https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-...
https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-...
This bit is pure genius:
He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF.
He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF.
Reading this breaks my heart a little. Having the humility to bow to the people that harassed him and the FSF is a gesture I wasn't really expecting from him.
However it's refreshing to see that people that are consistently seen as abrasive and negative, can introspect, even due to external circumstances, and try to correct their behaviour so late in life.
I feel like online we need to try to empathize a lot more with others that don't match the well established "disadvantaged" categories instead of piling on the negativity.
However it's refreshing to see that people that are consistently seen as abrasive and negative, can introspect, even due to external circumstances, and try to correct their behaviour so late in life.
I feel like online we need to try to empathize a lot more with others that don't match the well established "disadvantaged" categories instead of piling on the negativity.
I think it would be fairer to say that RMS needs to introspect, because the way his brain works, all those little things which seem to be automatic for other people require constant conscious effort.
I sometimes feel the same way; that in order to not cause disruption in social situations, I need to engage my conscious brain at 100% and monitor my actions (and other people's) because if I don't, I might communicate something in a way that another person will misinterpret and which then leads to trouble. If I act abrasive or negative, it is not by choice.
I sometimes feel the same way; that in order to not cause disruption in social situations, I need to engage my conscious brain at 100% and monitor my actions (and other people's) because if I don't, I might communicate something in a way that another person will misinterpret and which then leads to trouble. If I act abrasive or negative, it is not by choice.
> "I sometimes feel the same way; that in order to not cause disruption in social situations, I need to engage my conscious brain at 100% and monitor my actions (and other people's) because if I don't, I might communicate something in a way that another person will misinterpret and which then leads to trouble."
You can relax a bit. Because what you're missing is that 75% of people just don't even think of being careful like this and are fine with frequently coming across poorly to other people. You're just introspecting more and being polite, as I think is usually better and respectful.
You can relax a bit. Because what you're missing is that 75% of people just don't even think of being careful like this and are fine with frequently coming across poorly to other people. You're just introspecting more and being polite, as I think is usually better and respectful.
I really hope this will be sufficient to let this whole situation rest. The right thing to do is to accept his apology while holding him accountable for his commitment to be better in the future.
Which apology? He’s only apologizing once quickly for losing his temper (Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.) and spends a whole lot of time explaining why he is different and we should all put up with his social ineptitude because he didn’t know better. That does not constitute an apology.
We the socially inept can and do learn to adapt. He’s a clever man, he can do it too.
We the socially inept can and do learn to adapt. He’s a clever man, he can do it too.
> We the socially inept can and do learn to adapt. He’s a clever man, he can do it too.
This is such a weird concept to me. I have no problems getting social cues, it comes natural to me. Doing it purely intellectually? I wouldn't have a fucking idea how to. I think it's similar to doing pretty lame things like walking. It's a complex task that you can only do because you do it automatically. If we had a pill that would simply remove your muscle memory, you couldn't walk.
"Just do it consciously, lol" doesn't work, I think.
This is such a weird concept to me. I have no problems getting social cues, it comes natural to me. Doing it purely intellectually? I wouldn't have a fucking idea how to. I think it's similar to doing pretty lame things like walking. It's a complex task that you can only do because you do it automatically. If we had a pill that would simply remove your muscle memory, you couldn't walk.
"Just do it consciously, lol" doesn't work, I think.
It takes a great deal of work, and my accuracy is still meh, but it can be done. In person interactions wind up being a balancing act between parsing the social cues (verbal and nonverbal) and listening to the words being said. Never both at the same time. It can be exhausting and can take a day or two to fully recover from a prolonged day of socializing.
It's a thing those of us on the spectrum have a bit of a challenge with. Whether people on the autism spectrum are high-functioning or not, probably the top question is "are you mad?" because it is often hard to tell.
However, I don't feel autism should be used as an excuse for bad behavior. I take responsibility for my actions and words, and so should RMS.
However, I don't feel autism should be used as an excuse for bad behavior. I take responsibility for my actions and words, and so should RMS.
I think one of the problems is that he speculates about being on the autism spectrum but it looks like he never bothered to get a diagnosis, which then to me also means that he probably is not receiving potentially helpful advice that could improve his interactions with neurotypical people.
Definitely plausible. I think he probably is on the spectrum, and yeah, could benefit from taking some time to learn how to cope with how that affects his interactions with others.
> However, I don't feel autism should be used as an excuse for bad behavior. I take responsibility for my actions and words, and so should RMS.
I agree. I'm not suggesting that it should be an excuse, just that it's a weird recommendation.
Some people find it easy to acknowledge their difficulties, others have a very hard time with that. It seems to me like RMS alludes to his difficulties, but doesn't get diagnosed, or doesn't share his diagnosis. That's his right, obviously. Other people then figure "hey, that guy is totally normal, he's just an asshole". Coupled with the fact that some get very emotionally invested when certain topics are touched, it's a recipe for disaster.
I agree. I'm not suggesting that it should be an excuse, just that it's a weird recommendation.
Some people find it easy to acknowledge their difficulties, others have a very hard time with that. It seems to me like RMS alludes to his difficulties, but doesn't get diagnosed, or doesn't share his diagnosis. That's his right, obviously. Other people then figure "hey, that guy is totally normal, he's just an asshole". Coupled with the fact that some get very emotionally invested when certain topics are touched, it's a recipe for disaster.
I don't understand why you're getting downvotes.
Thank you for acknowledging that there are a lot of our mental lives that is not primarily under the control of our reason. I think it opens the discussion to the spectrum of individual psychological variability. A much needed discussion as apparently some people can't fathom how other persons could differ from how they themselves function.
I'm convinced that recognizing that variability will be the next big step. It feels like we're currently between ignorance and fetishizing it. I look forward to the day where it becomes more normal, not only because I find it fascinating, but because I deeply believe that a lot of conflict is based on not understand that other people are fundamentally different from ourselves and then applying our framework to their actions and judging accordingly. I have no idea how we'll arrive at that though.
Sounds almost like you're describing high-functioning autism. Yes you can learn by emulation and observing inputs and outputs and looking for patterns, but it's not a perfect method.
And then, when someone is mad at you, you ask what happened, explain you didn't realize it and promise you'll change behaviour in the future.
I did it numerous times and it's not that hard, but I admit I am much more socially functional than RMS.
I did it numerous times and it's not that hard, but I admit I am much more socially functional than RMS.
Genuine question: if he had actually used the words "I'm sorry" or "I apologize", would that have made you feel better about what he said?
> spends a whole lot of time explaining why he is different and we should all put up with his social ineptitude because he didn’t know better.
I can't help but observe that this type of organizational "put up" is reserved only for some. Some people commit the most minor of crimes, perhaps as minor as enjoying the "wrong" type of music and just like that, never get a chance to participate or contribute. While other people commit terrible nasty crimes with actual real victims and keep getting additional chances. I'm not saying rms is this case.
I can't help but observe that this type of organizational "put up" is reserved only for some. Some people commit the most minor of crimes, perhaps as minor as enjoying the "wrong" type of music and just like that, never get a chance to participate or contribute. While other people commit terrible nasty crimes with actual real victims and keep getting additional chances. I'm not saying rms is this case.
> and [he] spends a whole lot of time explaining why he is different and we should all put up with his social ineptitude because he didn’t know better
My reading of this in the context of the post is that he self-aware enough to strive to be better, and admits he has failed to do so in the past.
> We the socially inept can and do learn to adapt. He’s a clever man, he can do it too.
Your response touches on something I have been trying to articulate for quite some time. For context: I am a bleeding-heart lefty and I am very often one of the loudmouths who critizes bad behaviour, including RMS's many social faux-pas (to put it politely).
What do we do with people who are trying to adapt, but their process doesn't look like we expect/wished it did?
His apology only barely grazes the actual points he was critized for. But he does admit to failing in the past, and tackles head-on how insufficient his responses were when it comes to women and his defense of Epstein-adjacent topics.
As much as we would like people to grovel and apologize the perfect way... they rarely do.
Is this, however, a good enough response that we can round it up to _redemption_? We want people to listen when we give them feedback on social stuff, we want them to engage us and take our pleas to heart, we want them to deconstruct themselves and do better.
One thing that is missing from these discussions, and this is bigger than the RMS stuff, is a sense of nuance and perspective. The Internet makes it really easy to escalate what should be a complaint into a full-on unforgivable offense... in some cases this is exactly what should be done and I welcome it, but in some others this escalation feels out of whack to me.
It is very hard to constructively argue about the proper intensity of our collective blowback to these offenses, because I haven't found a way to build a constructive defense of lesser-punishment that doesn't feel like a defense of the person or offense itself.
Back to RMS: while I will listen with an open mind to any oposing arguments you have, my subjective position is that this apology (although imperfect) is good-enough for me to believe he is trying.
My reading of this in the context of the post is that he self-aware enough to strive to be better, and admits he has failed to do so in the past.
> We the socially inept can and do learn to adapt. He’s a clever man, he can do it too.
Your response touches on something I have been trying to articulate for quite some time. For context: I am a bleeding-heart lefty and I am very often one of the loudmouths who critizes bad behaviour, including RMS's many social faux-pas (to put it politely).
What do we do with people who are trying to adapt, but their process doesn't look like we expect/wished it did?
His apology only barely grazes the actual points he was critized for. But he does admit to failing in the past, and tackles head-on how insufficient his responses were when it comes to women and his defense of Epstein-adjacent topics.
As much as we would like people to grovel and apologize the perfect way... they rarely do.
Is this, however, a good enough response that we can round it up to _redemption_? We want people to listen when we give them feedback on social stuff, we want them to engage us and take our pleas to heart, we want them to deconstruct themselves and do better.
One thing that is missing from these discussions, and this is bigger than the RMS stuff, is a sense of nuance and perspective. The Internet makes it really easy to escalate what should be a complaint into a full-on unforgivable offense... in some cases this is exactly what should be done and I welcome it, but in some others this escalation feels out of whack to me.
It is very hard to constructively argue about the proper intensity of our collective blowback to these offenses, because I haven't found a way to build a constructive defense of lesser-punishment that doesn't feel like a defense of the person or offense itself.
Back to RMS: while I will listen with an open mind to any oposing arguments you have, my subjective position is that this apology (although imperfect) is good-enough for me to believe he is trying.
I think the comparison with Linus is apt. Linus used this same kind of non apology style defense initially, but someone clearly got through to him and his behavior has changed visibly as a result. RMS's letter reads as justification/excusing him staying exactly the same.
> My reading of this in the context of the post is that he self-aware enough to strive to be better, and admits he has failed to do so in the past.
Just now? He hasn't changed for decades and has been informed his behaviour is something people have "to cope with" for his benefit and never seemed to make even a small effort to change.
> As much as we would like people to grovel and apologize the perfect way... they rarely do.
Then he's unfit for a leadership role, plain and simple. If he won't be fair, if he won't cease to make people uncomfortable and won't stop making inappropriate jokes, why would the board reinstate him?
Just now? He hasn't changed for decades and has been informed his behaviour is something people have "to cope with" for his benefit and never seemed to make even a small effort to change.
> As much as we would like people to grovel and apologize the perfect way... they rarely do.
Then he's unfit for a leadership role, plain and simple. If he won't be fair, if he won't cease to make people uncomfortable and won't stop making inappropriate jokes, why would the board reinstate him?
> Then he's unfit for a leadership role, plain and simple.
I can't actually argue with your reasoning here. Although my personal take is that he deserves an additional attempt... I can also see why one wouldn't be willing to give him that role again.
I can't actually argue with your reasoning here. Although my personal take is that he deserves an additional attempt... I can also see why one wouldn't be willing to give him that role again.
If he can't stop himself from being a divisive figure, he needs to go.
[deleted]
This is an attempt to paper over the fact that FSF intends to retain him in a leadership position and
that they think it was just a failure of their announcing it properly.
An actual apology by him or the fsf involved rectifying the error of putting rms in a position of leadership.
An actual apology by him or the fsf involved rectifying the error of putting rms in a position of leadership.
It's good that he acknowledges his comments hurt people. It's good that he is pledging to do better. I think as far as apologies go, this one ticks most of the boxes as far as admitting personal fault and not using weasel-words to blame the victims or apologize "if you were offended."
With all that said, I don't think this is going to bring any of the lost sponsors back.
With all that said, I don't think this is going to bring any of the lost sponsors back.
It's less a pledge to do better and more an assertion he puts adequate effort into improving already.
I really have no idea why anyone wants to keep RMS in charge of the FSF based on his work product alone. What has the FSF been doing other than slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years?
GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years. They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good.
I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. They seem more relevant than ever, but aren’t a huge deal. They just run GPL and promote open source. And they’re one of many groups. So it’s ok, I think, to just do your thing and not blow up and be huge.
They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful.
Also, RMS isn’t “in charge” he’s on a board that includes four other people.
[0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-... [1] 1.4M in 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation
I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. They seem more relevant than ever, but aren’t a huge deal. They just run GPL and promote open source. And they’re one of many groups. So it’s ok, I think, to just do your thing and not blow up and be huge.
They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful.
Also, RMS isn’t “in charge” he’s on a board that includes four other people.
[0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-... [1] 1.4M in 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation
> GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years.
One would hope that he'd have an achievement at least once a decade.
> They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good.
That's nice. No need to keep engineers around if they're just going to maintain a license then. Fire everyone and hire lawyers.
> I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be.
Very, I imagine. Very few organizations want to be small. Given that copyleft licenses are losing badly to more permissive licenses, I imagine that they'd prefer to be bigger and more effective.
> They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful.
I'd argue the opposite. Mozilla, for all of its faults, is actually trying to get open source and privacy respecting software into the hands of end users who aren't inherently ideological about this stuff. We can debate endlessly about their tactics and results, but in this decade at least they're massively more effective and important than the FSF.
I'd argue that the FSF is small in terms of staff and budget because the leadership has failed.
One would hope that he'd have an achievement at least once a decade.
> They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good.
That's nice. No need to keep engineers around if they're just going to maintain a license then. Fire everyone and hire lawyers.
> I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be.
Very, I imagine. Very few organizations want to be small. Given that copyleft licenses are losing badly to more permissive licenses, I imagine that they'd prefer to be bigger and more effective.
> They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful.
I'd argue the opposite. Mozilla, for all of its faults, is actually trying to get open source and privacy respecting software into the hands of end users who aren't inherently ideological about this stuff. We can debate endlessly about their tactics and results, but in this decade at least they're massively more effective and important than the FSF.
I'd argue that the FSF is small in terms of staff and budget because the leadership has failed.
You can argue whatever you like. You stated “slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years” and you were clearly wrong.
When I pointed out a few items they do to disprove your timeframe, you moved the goalposts and made statements as if the examples I gave were the only things FSF did.
You made an easy statement to disprove, I disproved it.
Feel free to research FSF and learn about what they do. You’ll certainly find examples of their impact “this decade.” I won’t look them up for you as I fear you’d then want examples from this femtosecond.
When I pointed out a few items they do to disprove your timeframe, you moved the goalposts and made statements as if the examples I gave were the only things FSF did.
You made an easy statement to disprove, I disproved it.
Feel free to research FSF and learn about what they do. You’ll certainly find examples of their impact “this decade.” I won’t look them up for you as I fear you’d then want examples from this femtosecond.
yet here we are arguing about the FSF. Why do people care if it’s irrelevant?
Granted that on the internet, people argue for fun. But in meatspace, people usually argue about things that they think art important and should be different. So in this case, parent seems to me to be saying "the downslide of the FSF is bad, and we should fix it, and I think RMS does not help fix it". Or, "it's not irrelevant yet, and shouldn't be, but RMS is making it so".
These are accurate summaries of the point I was trying to make.
Well, good for him. Hope this nonsensical witch hunt will naturally wither away.
It is fascinating to me how humane and sincere his statement is (compared to empty phrases of corporate leaders and predictable rhetoric of culture warriors), considering his putative issues with tone-deafness and social clues.
The good side of this witch-hunt is that the bad and the ugly revealed themselves. E.g. RedHat or Mozilla stopped their support to the fsf[1] with this hunt as scapegoat.
.. really sad for RedHat though ..
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/redhat_fsf_funding_ri...
.. really sad for RedHat though ..
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/redhat_fsf_funding_ri...
Note to others: Try not to defend yourself in an apology. Otherwise it ceases to become an apology, and instead becomes a list of reasons why there should be no accountability.
Extremely well put statements by RMS and FSF. Clearly, RMS has many true leadership capacities and is absolutely devoid of any corruptability.
I'm wondering if this last talent does actually require being on the spectrum, as he admits to in his first paragraphs.
I'm wondering if this last talent does actually require being on the spectrum, as he admits to in his first paragraphs.
The misinformation goes on. Susan Boos, president of the Swiss Press Council (!) writes:
https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/amp/meinung/gastkommentar-ric...
"Es ging um unterschiedliche sexistische Übergriffe. An seiner Bürotür stand «Ritter für Gerechtigkeit (auch: heisse Ladies)»."
"The topic were various sexual assaults. On his office door there was a sign «knight for justice (also: hot ladies)»."
This has been debunked multiple times, in fact the photo shows it was most likely students making a joke:
https://www.stallmansupport.org/say-it-with-a-meme.html#door
Way to go, Swiss "Press Council" ...
https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/amp/meinung/gastkommentar-ric...
"Es ging um unterschiedliche sexistische Übergriffe. An seiner Bürotür stand «Ritter für Gerechtigkeit (auch: heisse Ladies)»."
"The topic were various sexual assaults. On his office door there was a sign «knight for justice (also: hot ladies)»."
This has been debunked multiple times, in fact the photo shows it was most likely students making a joke:
https://www.stallmansupport.org/say-it-with-a-meme.html#door
Way to go, Swiss "Press Council" ...
RMS really stays behind what he says.
I'm very glad he is around!
I'm very glad he is around!
I'm glad he's around, too, and I hope he keeps writing his intelligent and completely tone-deaf rants on his own website.
I really hope they get him out of FSF leadership ASAP. The damage he does to the free software movement is incalculable.
I really hope they get him out of FSF leadership ASAP. The damage he does to the free software movement is incalculable.
> The damage he does to the free software movement is incalculable.
That's like saying the damage George Lucas has done to Star Wars is incalculable. Without George Lucas, there is no Star Wars. Did he fuck it up? Absolutely. Is the world a better place with Star Wars in it? I think so.
We're not going to change these old-timers. That's what makes them old-timers. We're only going to become old-timers ourselves someday (if we're lucky). Probably best to exercise as much compassion for them as we can, and hope the future returns the favor when our time comes.
That's like saying the damage George Lucas has done to Star Wars is incalculable. Without George Lucas, there is no Star Wars. Did he fuck it up? Absolutely. Is the world a better place with Star Wars in it? I think so.
We're not going to change these old-timers. That's what makes them old-timers. We're only going to become old-timers ourselves someday (if we're lucky). Probably best to exercise as much compassion for them as we can, and hope the future returns the favor when our time comes.
I wonder if RMS wrote apology emails to the individuals that he hurt:
> I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women.
If not, someone might need to explain to him that that too is customary in our society.
> I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women.
If not, someone might need to explain to him that that too is customary in our society.
I don't think he will, because he's not apologizing for what he's done, he's apologizing for not realizing others would think it was wrong.
Reads like - I can’t pass your compliance litmus tests and neither can I keep quiet. Please leave me alone
RMS' letter is good; it settles my concerns about him. I can't say that keeping him in the board is good for the FSF, but oh well...
> False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me.
I feel similarly and wonder what this is called or how many others feel similarly. It’s curious to me as I try to solve problems and filter truth from false just in general everyday life so when someone says something that seems false it sticks out to me in my thoughts. I stopped trying to correct this as it seems most people aren’t very receptive, to say the least :) I’m not sure if people don’t care because being wrong isn’t the most important part, or they already know it’s false and don’t care.
It’s fun learning about how different people see the world and I think it’s cool how many different people there are in the world and people have really different world views than I.
I feel similarly and wonder what this is called or how many others feel similarly. It’s curious to me as I try to solve problems and filter truth from false just in general everyday life so when someone says something that seems false it sticks out to me in my thoughts. I stopped trying to correct this as it seems most people aren’t very receptive, to say the least :) I’m not sure if people don’t care because being wrong isn’t the most important part, or they already know it’s false and don’t care.
It’s fun learning about how different people see the world and I think it’s cool how many different people there are in the world and people have really different world views than I.
Speaking as someone who shares this trait with you, you should know if you don't already: this is a characteristic of autistic brains. (Not to say that either you or I are definitely autistic.) The other people's brains put a higher weight on what you might call "agreeableness" (from the Big 5 personality traits) than on strict factual correctness.
> I stopped trying to correct this as it seems most people aren’t very receptive, to say the least.
Same; I have found it best to "keep my powder dry" so to speak, and have slowly, slowly learned to weigh my own sense of importance against various social values. I find it makes me more effective when it is indeed important.
> I stopped trying to correct this as it seems most people aren’t very receptive, to say the least.
Same; I have found it best to "keep my powder dry" so to speak, and have slowly, slowly learned to weigh my own sense of importance against various social values. I find it makes me more effective when it is indeed important.
This is not an apology.
What exactly does an apology look like if not this?
[deleted]
The word 'sorry' could go along way. But in this statement, ctrl+f for 'sorry' -> 0 results.
Okay, let's try 'apologize' -> 1 result.
> Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
He victim-blames by saying that people 'couldn't cope' with him, and he's apologizing to them (because they couldn't cope??)
There are a billion apologies better than this. Simply "I made mistakes and I'm sorry" with some explanation that he feels remorse or is otherwise understanding of the pain he has caused.
This text instead reads like a spiteful, upset piece where he explains how misunderstood he is. That's not even close to an apology.
Okay, let's try 'apologize' -> 1 result.
> Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.
He victim-blames by saying that people 'couldn't cope' with him, and he's apologizing to them (because they couldn't cope??)
There are a billion apologies better than this. Simply "I made mistakes and I'm sorry" with some explanation that he feels remorse or is otherwise understanding of the pain he has caused.
This text instead reads like a spiteful, upset piece where he explains how misunderstood he is. That's not even close to an apology.
Correct. It's an address. I don't think anyone was expecting an apology, they were demanding a complete resignation of the entire board of the FSF.
People were not wanting an apology to forgive someone afterwards. They were demanding total capitulation. Peace was not on the table.
People were not wanting an apology to forgive someone afterwards. They were demanding total capitulation. Peace was not on the table.
That's because having opinions is not something to apologize for.
[deleted]
If your "opinions" hurt people then yes, that is something to apologise for.
I think it depends on what the opinions are.
I used to be a vegetarian and had friends who would be upset and hurt when people ate meat. I don’t think meat eaters should apologize.
There’s lots of situations where someone says something reasonable, and someone gets upset and no apology is necessary.
Your claim that absolutely if opinions hurt people then the opinion haver should apologize , is wrong I think. And will lead to less discussion and a net negative to society.
I used to be a vegetarian and had friends who would be upset and hurt when people ate meat. I don’t think meat eaters should apologize.
There’s lots of situations where someone says something reasonable, and someone gets upset and no apology is necessary.
Your claim that absolutely if opinions hurt people then the opinion haver should apologize , is wrong I think. And will lead to less discussion and a net negative to society.
You hurt me by this comment. I demand an apology from you.
Not at all. If your opinions are correct, and yet they hurt someone, do you need to apologise? Or maybe you think that it's impossible for a correct or reasonable opinion to hurt others? Because in that case I have tons of counterexamples.
A lot of people were offended by the theory that man descended from apes. Do you think Darwin should have apologised?
A lot of people were offended by the theory that man descended from apes. Do you think Darwin should have apologised?
I'm quite impressed with this statement. It isn't at all what I expected.
I hope he can put this mess behind him.
I hope he can put this mess behind him.
It is great that RMS is trying to explore his emotional capacity and relate to others!
Shocking in these comments how many people believe that people are not responsible for their own emotions. No one can "hurt another" emotionally. It is up to each person to take the mature (and logical) stance that "I am responsible for my emotions". If something someone does or says "hurts me" emotionally, it is because I have chosen to allow that emotion, or I have not sufficiently dealt with the circumstances that have caused it to arise such that I am unable to process it in a manner which does not put the responsibility for its arising on another.
I'm not saying that if someone shoots your mother you shouldn't feel angry or sad, but that the anger or sadness is not CAUSED by another. It arises solely within you. You can see that this is true because people react wholly differently dependent upon the individual. It is within human capability to positively act from a place of clarity rather than negatively react from emotion.
It seems clear from this short page that RMS understands this.
Shocking in these comments how many people believe that people are not responsible for their own emotions. No one can "hurt another" emotionally. It is up to each person to take the mature (and logical) stance that "I am responsible for my emotions". If something someone does or says "hurts me" emotionally, it is because I have chosen to allow that emotion, or I have not sufficiently dealt with the circumstances that have caused it to arise such that I am unable to process it in a manner which does not put the responsibility for its arising on another.
I'm not saying that if someone shoots your mother you shouldn't feel angry or sad, but that the anger or sadness is not CAUSED by another. It arises solely within you. You can see that this is true because people react wholly differently dependent upon the individual. It is within human capability to positively act from a place of clarity rather than negatively react from emotion.
It seems clear from this short page that RMS understands this.
This is like saying that when you shoot someone, it's the bullet that killed them, not you. Maybe it's technically true but it's not very useful, it's just pedantry used in an attempt to deny culpability.
It is not like saying that at all. The emotional world is connected with but is not exclusively the physical world.
Putting the responsibility for one's emotional responses on another is the denying of culpability for one's self.
I find it is useful to be wary of those who find it useful to point a finger and say 'he/she did this to me' when they become emotionally hurt or even happy, knowing they will non-usefully invariably want me to be nanny or projection target for their other emotions when they arise in whatever manifestation.
Putting the responsibility for one's emotional responses on another is the denying of culpability for one's self.
I find it is useful to be wary of those who find it useful to point a finger and say 'he/she did this to me' when they become emotionally hurt or even happy, knowing they will non-usefully invariably want me to be nanny or projection target for their other emotions when they arise in whatever manifestation.
People aren't robots, they are emotionally connected biological beings. Emotions are a biological response. You can't just 100% control your emotions any more than you can 100% control your thyroid.
>> You can't just 100% control your emotions any more than you can 100% control your thyroid.
I suspect you arrive at this conclusion because this is the way you have always operated and so it must be 'how it is'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pboh0Q0Z3DI
https://universe-inside-you.com/buddhist-monks/
And these are only Buddhist examples.
I suspect you arrive at this conclusion because this is the way you have always operated and so it must be 'how it is'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pboh0Q0Z3DI
https://universe-inside-you.com/buddhist-monks/
And these are only Buddhist examples.
So what will mozilla say now? Are they proud of essentially bullying a man who has a disability?
Apparently, in (class/identity) wars there are no innocents, personal circumstances don't matter, what matters is to support your ideology by any means. Like good little soldiers, they should execute and not think, they are not allowed to have original ideas. When they become too original they instantly are labelled heretics and cancelled. So they can't stop and look at circumstances when the purity spiral is crushing on their heads.
Yes. The only thing that matters is the quantity of retweets your morally righteous attitudes afford you
Mozilla will of course follow their own code of conduct and those of the organisations they belong to. (Except when they are part of the mob)
They did not even only bully him for his actual flaws, but for stuff he is not even guilty of too...
Unrelated but, I'm curious: how does RMS pay the bills? The FSF board seat is a volunteer position and he no longer works for MIT. Is he paid as a consultant or something?
He has both earned (as a software consultant) and been awarded fairly large sums of money in the past, and has purposefully lived inexpensively. Not sure if he presently has any income or not. As far as I know, neither the FSF nor MIT paid him since the early 1980's.
He has given paid talks for the last decade or two I believe.
Considering he was sleeping on a mattress in a MIT office, hopefully he saved a good portion of that in a bank account. He will also be eligible for social security and Medicare at his age, assuming he had enough working years in the social security system to qualify.
Considering he was sleeping on a mattress in a MIT office, hopefully he saved a good portion of that in a bank account. He will also be eligible for social security and Medicare at his age, assuming he had enough working years in the social security system to qualify.
It's kind of sad given that probably all the FAANG companies wouldn't exist (yet) if it wasn't for his work.
You make it sound like only RMS' contributions were significant for our current state of software.
There are a lot of people with significant contributions without which the world wouldn't be in its current state.
There are a lot of people with significant contributions without which the world wouldn't be in its current state.
Yes, but RMS seems to be at the root of it all.
For example, Linux depends on gcc and binutils and other GNU software, and many other software does.
For example, Linux depends on gcc and binutils and other GNU software, and many other software does.
He won that MacArthur award that came with money. He also owns a home in Cambridge that he rents out. Maybe social security as well.
I'm getting tired of seeing this second uninstallman dramatizations everywhere, FOSS blogs, Linux distros, Twitter, HN, but what do I know, the witchhunt will go on.
Seems reasonable to me, though I am among the crowd who didn't read his initial statement as anything resembling a defense of Epstein.
It irks me to a great extent how you cannot debate certain topics without immediately being labelled as an apologist or a supporter. Nuance no longer exists.
Nuance never existed for those who see the world in black and white.
Fortunately, most of us aren't in that category.
Fortunately, most of us aren't in that category.
You can debate them, just not with everyone. Chatham House Rules should be applied to all discussions as well, and it's probably wise to shun those who don't want to follow those.
Most people didn't read it as a defence of Epstein, but (as RMS says) as a defence of Minsky.
It's that defence of Minsky that's a huge problem.
It's that defence of Minsky that's a huge problem.
All the evidence we have public is that Minsky was innocent. He wasn’t even accused of doing anything bad.
The victim stated Epstein asked her to proposition Minsky, but she did not say he accepted.
Stallman’s defense was a hypothetical that probably would have been very similar to a courtroom defense of Minsky, that said since Minsky is both dead and not actually accused of the crime, no such courtroom scene would ever take place.
The victim stated Epstein asked her to proposition Minsky, but she did not say he accepted.
Stallman’s defense was a hypothetical that probably would have been very similar to a courtroom defense of Minsky, that said since Minsky is both dead and not actually accused of the crime, no such courtroom scene would ever take place.
This just reads like a politician got caught in corruption and trying to find excuses and putting himself as the victim. Nothing really changed, nothing except promises and FSF still tried to sneak in RMS and got caught.
good on him.
Some believe that RMS did nothing wrong. If he hurt people, that's worth addressing, because it is people who make up the free software communities. A function of leadership is to be accountable, not perfect, and in that vein it is on RMS to respond as he did.
I always cringe when I see people engage in apology grading. I may be in the minority here but I rarely find it appropriate for leaders in any sense to apologize. It's your job to lead, whether that be in thought, action, or both and I expect that over the course of thousands of decisions for an increasingly ballooning pool of people to represent that you will make mistakes, even large ones, along the way. What I do expect is that leaders are accountable. That doesn't mean to say that leaders should be bound to write out formal apologies to people they hurt, because for every decision on an important issue you will end up hurting someone.
For instance, the ideals of free software (as defined by RMS and others) from time to time will likely offend and hurt others. This was relevant when people were trying to modify free software licenses to prevent their software from being used by certain government agencies or authoritarian governments while attempting to continue to benefit from the term "free software". Unfortunately, as pointed out, that very act violated the principles of free software, which exist in their purity to ensure access to even the most oppressed societies across the world. I am sure the people who championed the purity of this access were viewed as hurtful and oppressive by some in the moment. I do expect that these folks will stand up in the face of fierce opposition and will confidently answer their intent and mitigating circumstances and take note for improvements into the future; the same way we would RCA good software.
I have a hard time understanding why RMS spends so much time openly espousing his thoughts on a wide range of subjects. I do this in my personal time with friends but I constrain that to people I know because they understand me and my principles. On the other hand, saying that he isn't allowed to comment on other things or classifying that activity as "distracting" is interesting. I feel the same way when I find out developers I like and follow have edgy opinions about race and gender, but I also draw a line of distinction that acknowledges that their experiences in life may just be different from mine, even if they occasionally offend me, and that's okay. The world does take all types, and things I've taken offense to have been done in good faith a good amount of the time.
The last notion I'll touch on is that we often expect that leaders will be fully invested in advancing our goals and the traits of the organization. We champion leaders who can take an organization that has lost its way and turn it into something, but do we make the same expectations of ourselves to leaders. Is there a point where we start to invest ourselves into organically growing RMS in certain facets? Free software has grown and evolved, but it sounds like RMS hasn't - should we really cast him aside and decide all of his investment in us is now worthless that he requires investment? That's not to say that people haven't tried to course correct him, because they likely have, but sometimes in order to grow people need things to get worse in order to get better. That's where our investment, as a community, in him starts. That could mean that he seeks therapy, it could mean he gets a publicist, it could mean a wide variety of things, but I'm favorable to treating leaders like the humans that they are.
I always cringe when I see people engage in apology grading. I may be in the minority here but I rarely find it appropriate for leaders in any sense to apologize. It's your job to lead, whether that be in thought, action, or both and I expect that over the course of thousands of decisions for an increasingly ballooning pool of people to represent that you will make mistakes, even large ones, along the way. What I do expect is that leaders are accountable. That doesn't mean to say that leaders should be bound to write out formal apologies to people they hurt, because for every decision on an important issue you will end up hurting someone.
For instance, the ideals of free software (as defined by RMS and others) from time to time will likely offend and hurt others. This was relevant when people were trying to modify free software licenses to prevent their software from being used by certain government agencies or authoritarian governments while attempting to continue to benefit from the term "free software". Unfortunately, as pointed out, that very act violated the principles of free software, which exist in their purity to ensure access to even the most oppressed societies across the world. I am sure the people who championed the purity of this access were viewed as hurtful and oppressive by some in the moment. I do expect that these folks will stand up in the face of fierce opposition and will confidently answer their intent and mitigating circumstances and take note for improvements into the future; the same way we would RCA good software.
I have a hard time understanding why RMS spends so much time openly espousing his thoughts on a wide range of subjects. I do this in my personal time with friends but I constrain that to people I know because they understand me and my principles. On the other hand, saying that he isn't allowed to comment on other things or classifying that activity as "distracting" is interesting. I feel the same way when I find out developers I like and follow have edgy opinions about race and gender, but I also draw a line of distinction that acknowledges that their experiences in life may just be different from mine, even if they occasionally offend me, and that's okay. The world does take all types, and things I've taken offense to have been done in good faith a good amount of the time.
The last notion I'll touch on is that we often expect that leaders will be fully invested in advancing our goals and the traits of the organization. We champion leaders who can take an organization that has lost its way and turn it into something, but do we make the same expectations of ourselves to leaders. Is there a point where we start to invest ourselves into organically growing RMS in certain facets? Free software has grown and evolved, but it sounds like RMS hasn't - should we really cast him aside and decide all of his investment in us is now worthless that he requires investment? That's not to say that people haven't tried to course correct him, because they likely have, but sometimes in order to grow people need things to get worse in order to get better. That's where our investment, as a community, in him starts. That could mean that he seeks therapy, it could mean he gets a publicist, it could mean a wide variety of things, but I'm favorable to treating leaders like the humans that they are.
While I support RMS and find the lies peddled about him abhorrent, this article convinced me he is not fit to serve as the public face of free software: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
In short: He harmed the cause of free software by making public statements on unrelated, controversial issues.
In short: He harmed the cause of free software by making public statements on unrelated, controversial issues.
Both MIT and Harvard have admitted to helping Jeffrey Epstein avoid prosecution on federal racketeering charges for the sex-trafficking of minors after they were exposed by whistle-blowers at both of these institutions.
I'm still not sure why people consider it appropriate to exclude someone like Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while continuing to allow Mr. Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei...
Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus with just a slap on the wrist:
https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op...
Or Mr. Martin Nowak for that matter either:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio...
This hacker news thread on Nowak is worth reading again:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060
So why has nobody drafted petitions to cancel Rafael "Thank You So Much Mr. Epstein -- And Don't Forget to Show My Letter to Federal Prosecutors" Reif, Benedict "Epstein is an Ideal Donor for Harvard" Gross, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, Martin "Punishment Serves No Noble Purpose" Nowak, Steven "Using the Internet to Entice a Minor into Prostition is A-Okay" Pinker, Seth "So What If I Make Female Undergraduates at MIT Feel Uncomfortable "Lloyd, Neri "Epstein was Always a Reliable Supporter of Israel" Oxman, Frank "I Never Saw any Girls that were Underage" Wilczek, and all of the other pedophilia-tolerating two-faced phonies that attended EDGE Foundation dinners hosted by the convicted child rapist and/or visited him on "Pedophile Isle," where FBI reportedly found instruction manuals that Mr. Epstein had ordered on Amazon that describe how to create a so-called "sex slave," in addition to video tapes containing child pornography that he allegedly recorded using secret cameras that were installed throughout his various residences?
Stallman blaming his "being on the spectrum" for all of the troubling statements cataloged on the website cited below may not entirely excuse Mr. Stallman for making them since there is no evidence that someone on the spectrum is more likely than the general population to hold similar views on child rape:
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
But the most important question today that Mr. Stallman needs to address directly, because many of his critics on this issue continue to hold him in the highest regard for his role in advancing the free software movement, is a very frank one:
Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, and Leon Black, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is a professor?
I'm not entirely convinced by the naysayers on this one yet, but Stallman is most deserving of forgiveness thus far, and not because of his autism, but rather because of all of his contributions to free software in spite of it.
Some of the other dogs cited above deserve to spend time in the same jail cell where Epstein killed himself because he was too much of a coward to stand trial for all of the crimes that he knew he had committed.
I'm still not sure why people consider it appropriate to exclude someone like Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while continuing to allow Mr. Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei...
Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus with just a slap on the wrist:
https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op...
Or Mr. Martin Nowak for that matter either:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio...
This hacker news thread on Nowak is worth reading again:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060
So why has nobody drafted petitions to cancel Rafael "Thank You So Much Mr. Epstein -- And Don't Forget to Show My Letter to Federal Prosecutors" Reif, Benedict "Epstein is an Ideal Donor for Harvard" Gross, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, Martin "Punishment Serves No Noble Purpose" Nowak, Steven "Using the Internet to Entice a Minor into Prostition is A-Okay" Pinker, Seth "So What If I Make Female Undergraduates at MIT Feel Uncomfortable "Lloyd, Neri "Epstein was Always a Reliable Supporter of Israel" Oxman, Frank "I Never Saw any Girls that were Underage" Wilczek, and all of the other pedophilia-tolerating two-faced phonies that attended EDGE Foundation dinners hosted by the convicted child rapist and/or visited him on "Pedophile Isle," where FBI reportedly found instruction manuals that Mr. Epstein had ordered on Amazon that describe how to create a so-called "sex slave," in addition to video tapes containing child pornography that he allegedly recorded using secret cameras that were installed throughout his various residences?
Stallman blaming his "being on the spectrum" for all of the troubling statements cataloged on the website cited below may not entirely excuse Mr. Stallman for making them since there is no evidence that someone on the spectrum is more likely than the general population to hold similar views on child rape:
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
But the most important question today that Mr. Stallman needs to address directly, because many of his critics on this issue continue to hold him in the highest regard for his role in advancing the free software movement, is a very frank one:
Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, and Leon Black, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is a professor?
I'm not entirely convinced by the naysayers on this one yet, but Stallman is most deserving of forgiveness thus far, and not because of his autism, but rather because of all of his contributions to free software in spite of it.
Some of the other dogs cited above deserve to spend time in the same jail cell where Epstein killed himself because he was too much of a coward to stand trial for all of the crimes that he knew he had committed.
throwawaysea(3)
I think there's a lot of rhetoric that implicitly, or even explicitly, insists that there are easily defined bright lines here: "Say [thing X] and you should definitively be out, full stop" vs. "Anything you say or do 'off the clock' has no bearing on your work whatsoever, no way no how." I'm extremely doubtful those lines actually exist. Context matters, and in practice -- for both good and ill -- the social norms and mores of the time, place, and organizations in question are going to come into play, and it's just unrealistic to expect otherwise.
And, sure, this is political in some real sense, but it's not just the politics of "the other side." A C-suite executive at Patagonia is likely to be not-so-politely asked to find other work if they start publicly pushing Trumpworld's stolen election propaganda; a C-suite executive at a Catholic hospital is going to face capital-Q Questions if it comes out that they've donated tens of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood. What you do "off the clock" matters to your employer if they feel it reflects badly on them. This is not some kind of brand new thing that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for those angry millennials with their twitters and their social justices. What's changed over time are the specifics of Things Perceived To Reflect Badly.
With respect to RMS, there have been reports about his bad social behavior for decades. In the last few years, our attitudes toward harassing behavior has grown a lot less tolerant, and "Ha ha, that's just ol' creepy Bob, what are you gonna do, am I right" is no longer seen as a sufficient response. "Sure, Bob is a creep, but he's done such great work, so just suck it up, Buttercup" sends a message to prospective employees, customers, donors, sponsors, vendors, etc., that companies and organizations are increasingly deciding that they do not want to send. I understand that this sucks for the ol' creepy Bobs of the world, but is that really sufficient reason to default to taking Bob's side?
The pro-RMS thread that runs through these comments[1] is, and I am only barely paraphrasing here, Stallman's contributions to the free software movement are so important they excuse his documented mistreatment of others for decades. In other words: be a big enough name in free software and you can get away with anything, baby.
And maybe you're comfortable with that message. But I'm not at all sure you should be.
[1] There is also a pro-RMS thread running through these comments which I can paraphrase as "but he was only hypothetically defending pedophilia and it's so dishonest of the media to present that as if it were weird and disturbing in any possible way," which, I mean, look. There's a reasonable discussion to be had about how "Think of the Children" has become the third rail of all internet discussions, but this ain't it, chief.
And, sure, this is political in some real sense, but it's not just the politics of "the other side." A C-suite executive at Patagonia is likely to be not-so-politely asked to find other work if they start publicly pushing Trumpworld's stolen election propaganda; a C-suite executive at a Catholic hospital is going to face capital-Q Questions if it comes out that they've donated tens of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood. What you do "off the clock" matters to your employer if they feel it reflects badly on them. This is not some kind of brand new thing that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for those angry millennials with their twitters and their social justices. What's changed over time are the specifics of Things Perceived To Reflect Badly.
With respect to RMS, there have been reports about his bad social behavior for decades. In the last few years, our attitudes toward harassing behavior has grown a lot less tolerant, and "Ha ha, that's just ol' creepy Bob, what are you gonna do, am I right" is no longer seen as a sufficient response. "Sure, Bob is a creep, but he's done such great work, so just suck it up, Buttercup" sends a message to prospective employees, customers, donors, sponsors, vendors, etc., that companies and organizations are increasingly deciding that they do not want to send. I understand that this sucks for the ol' creepy Bobs of the world, but is that really sufficient reason to default to taking Bob's side?
The pro-RMS thread that runs through these comments[1] is, and I am only barely paraphrasing here, Stallman's contributions to the free software movement are so important they excuse his documented mistreatment of others for decades. In other words: be a big enough name in free software and you can get away with anything, baby.
And maybe you're comfortable with that message. But I'm not at all sure you should be.
[1] There is also a pro-RMS thread running through these comments which I can paraphrase as "but he was only hypothetically defending pedophilia and it's so dishonest of the media to present that as if it were weird and disturbing in any possible way," which, I mean, look. There's a reasonable discussion to be had about how "Think of the Children" has become the third rail of all internet discussions, but this ain't it, chief.
So, with all the talk about RMS being on the autism spectrum in the last threads on this topic, with RMS speculating about it himself, and now this letter where he talks about his problems about interpreting social cues: To me this reads if he never bothered to get an official diagnosis? Since there is a lot of stigma that comes with neurodevelopmental disorders and mental health in general, I get that this is a highly private matter. That said, if it's the case that he truly suspects that he is on the autism spectrum but never bothered to get a diagnosis that would somewhat be a bad sign to me just on a general level, considering all the push back that he obviously got from people because of his behaviour.
No real accountability, no addressing the decades of bad behavior that drove people -- particularly women -- from free software in fear and disgust, no whiff of an attempt to substantively do better on the issues of inclusion and representation plaguing the movement. Just excuses and playing the autism card, which goes over about as well as it did for Christian Weston Chandler. Typical RMS.
Judgement made.
The FSF should remove Stallman from its board and publicly distance itself from him. Otherwise judgement will come for the FSF too. They've already lost the good will of Red Hat, which was the organization driving actual development of the Linux ecosystem. It's hard to run a foundation, or a movement, without money.
Imagine if RMS lived to see the FSF go bankrupt, and its assets purchased by hostile corporations who then go on to make GCC and Emacs proprietary? They could do this because of the CLA they make contributors sign. A bitterly ironic end to a noble movement.
Judgement made.
The FSF should remove Stallman from its board and publicly distance itself from him. Otherwise judgement will come for the FSF too. They've already lost the good will of Red Hat, which was the organization driving actual development of the Linux ecosystem. It's hard to run a foundation, or a movement, without money.
Imagine if RMS lived to see the FSF go bankrupt, and its assets purchased by hostile corporations who then go on to make GCC and Emacs proprietary? They could do this because of the CLA they make contributors sign. A bitterly ironic end to a noble movement.
It's disgusting that the FSF not only snuck the return of RMS into the end of LibrePlanet without notifying anyone, drove out the wrongthinking staff before creating a staff position on the board, and now to cap it off are writing articles instructing people on how to react to these things.
RMS is not a good leader. The FSF should pay him for his work on GPL and leave him off the board. The FSF should also stop writing instructions for other people on how to treat the FSF, and should instead focus on earning the response they want to see from their supporters.
RMS is not a good leader. The FSF should pay him for his work on GPL and leave him off the board. The FSF should also stop writing instructions for other people on how to treat the FSF, and should instead focus on earning the response they want to see from their supporters.
You have entirely missed the whole point of the situation, which has been going on for a while. Besides, this is about Stallman's own statement.
I don't know if you're trying to educate me, but you haven't. What would you say "the whole point" is here? And why bother pretending that Stallman's statement and the FSF's statement, issued thirty seconds later and containing many of the same instructions, should be considered separately, despite Stallman's statement not being issued on his own website, but that of the FSF?
> Some have described me as being "tone-deaf," and that is fair. With my difficulty in understanding social cues, that tends to happen. For instance, I defended Professor Minsky on an M.I.T. mailing list after someone leaped to the conclusion that he was just guilty as Jeffrey Epstein. To my surprise, some thought my message defended Epstein. As I had stated previously, Epstein is a serial rapist, and rapists should be punished. I wish for his victims and those harmed by him to receive justice.
> False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense.
People aren't saying he's "just as guilty" as Epstein. They are saying that:
Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001. This was several years after (1999) rumours started spreading about "pedophile island".
In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.
> False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense.
People aren't saying he's "just as guilty" as Epstein. They are saying that:
Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001. This was several years after (1999) rumours started spreading about "pedophile island".
In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.
> Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001.
You're doing the exact thing that journalists did when they condemned RMS. Virginia Giuffre testified that Epstein directed her to have sex with Minsky; however she has not said that they actually had sex. His ex-wife also claims that she was with him the entire time they were on the island.
You're doing the exact thing that journalists did when they condemned RMS. Virginia Giuffre testified that Epstein directed her to have sex with Minsky; however she has not said that they actually had sex. His ex-wife also claims that she was with him the entire time they were on the island.
Maybe DanBC was there too and knows the truth.
That's not the claim that RMS is making though, is it? And I'm responding to what RMS said, not necessarily what actually happened.
https://time.com/5651186/jeffrey-epstein-investigation-co-co...
"Minsky’s widow, Gloria Rudisch, denied he had sex with Giuffre or any other girls, telling the New York Post that the couple had visited Epstein a few times, but that she was always with her husband."
"Minsky’s widow, Gloria Rudisch, denied he had sex with Giuffre or any other girls, telling the New York Post that the couple had visited Epstein a few times, but that she was always with her husband."
His email was written with the presumption that he slept with her:
> Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
> Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
Exactly. The problem is that the behavior he defended was problematic, whether or not it actually happened. This signals to potential predators in the future, "I will look for excuses for your behavior if I like you".
[deleted]
> In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.
In most places rape, like most crimes, require both actus reus (victim was coerced) and mens rea (perpetrator was aware of that). This is a complicated by the age issue (as a mistake of age is often an explicit exception to mens rea), but in general you cannot be thief, murderer or rapist without knowing that.
In most places rape, like most crimes, require both actus reus (victim was coerced) and mens rea (perpetrator was aware of that). This is a complicated by the age issue (as a mistake of age is often an explicit exception to mens rea), but in general you cannot be thief, murderer or rapist without knowing that.
US trafficking laws include the concept of "reckless disregard".
I don't recall it ever having been proven that Minksy had sex with anyone. I'm obviously open to being corrected on this.
> I don't recall it ever having been proven that Minksy had sex with anyone. I'm obviously open to being corrected on this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky
" The Minskytron or "Three Position Display" running on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1, 2007
In 1952, Minsky married pediatrician Gloria Rudisch; together they had three children"
I am assuming it was through sex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky
" The Minskytron or "Three Position Display" running on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1, 2007
In 1952, Minsky married pediatrician Gloria Rudisch; together they had three children"
I am assuming it was through sex.
Touché
That is not how these things work nowadays. Journalists simply reprint each other until everyone accepts their theories as facts
We're not talking about what Minsky did or did not do. We're talking about the situation that Stallman set up, and then defended. In Stallman's version Minsky did have sex with a coerced trafficked 17 year old, and Stallman is fine with that happening.
Didn't Minsky rejected her proposal to have sex?
Unknown. Wikipedia says
> Virginia Giuffre testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Maxwell directed her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate
> Virginia Giuffre testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Maxwell directed her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate
Minsky was on the island in 2002, and Guiffre (born 1983) was 18 at the time.
Again, that's not the claim that RMS made, is it? RMS started from the position that she was 17, and trafficked, and that Minsky had sex with her. He then defended that behaviour.
What actually happened isn't particularly relevant. We're not talking about what happened, we're talking about the behaviours that RMS will defend.
RMS defended the concept of someone having sex with a trafficked coerced 17 year old girl.
What actually happened isn't particularly relevant. We're not talking about what happened, we're talking about the behaviours that RMS will defend.
RMS defended the concept of someone having sex with a trafficked coerced 17 year old girl.
> Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001. This was several years after (1999) rumours started spreading about "pedophile island".
Fabricated from whole cloth. Not even Virginia Giuffre alleges this.
Source: The depositions. Which clearly none of you have read.
Fabricated from whole cloth. Not even Virginia Giuffre alleges this.
Source: The depositions. Which clearly none of you have read.
[1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r... [2]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scient...